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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22485454">The Line ||</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixx2pointOh/pseuds/Vixx2pointOh'>Vixx2pointOh</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Arrow (TV 2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Gang World, Anal Fingering, Bad Decisions, Blood, Blow Jobs, Character Death, Complete, Consensual, Crimes &amp; Criminals, Cunnilingus, Dangerous men, Death, Desk Sex, Dubious Morality, F/M, Falling In Love, Fucking, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Knifeplay, Lap Sex, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Rough Sex, Secrets, Semi-Public Sex, Shower Sex, Smoking Kink, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism, Weapons, no canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:14:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>119,001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22485454</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixx2pointOh/pseuds/Vixx2pointOh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity Smoak is no one special.  Her life is simple, her job pays the bills, and she prefers it that way.  But, when her roommate goes missing and no one is prepared to look for her, Felicity embarks down a path she might not easily come back from… if at all.</p><p>It’s a path that puts Felicity directly in the crosshairs of the Cártel de la Sangre, and ultimately into the arms, and bed, of the very man who might have the answers, Oliver Queen.  He’s bad news with pale eyes and a devil’s smile that hides a world of secrets, while she reminds him of innocence and of everything he lost to become who he is.</p><p>Set into the dark backdrop of drugs, sex, and murder, both of these strangers are willing to cross lines in search of the truth.  But at what cost? </p><p>||COMPLETE</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2214</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5587</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. || preface</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You've waited long enough...let's do this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>If you are reading this fic on any outlet other than AO3 website; please note that it is there without my permission. This is tantamount to theft.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>I wrote this for free.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Apps like FANFIC POCKET ARCHIVE are making profit off people who write FOR YOU for FREE. Let that sink in.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Eventually, writers will lock stories or stop entirely.  Don't be part of the reason.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>xo</strong>
</p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>the Line | introduction</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Firstly, I want to start with a thank you.  A thank you to everyone who has stood by me through the years, who’ve read (dare I say devoured?) my words and said “thank you, may I please have some more?” at the end of it.  You’ve been amazing.  Beyond that, I want to thank Ash; girl these might be my words, but these are our stories.  You push me, support me, believe in me, and virtually slap me when it’s required.  I am me as a writer, because of who you are as a friend.  This one is for you, you finally won me over to it.</p><p>The story itself is dark.  It takes place predominantly in a world that is brutal, cruel, and twisted.  While I have no intention of glorifying it for shock value, I will also not be sugar coating it.  Please bear this in mind.  There will be mentions of abusive relationships, rape, drugs, self-harm, murder, trafficking, torture, etc.  It is not my plan to write these out in graphic detail (a trigger warning will be placed on any chapters I feel require it, if there are any), and in fact they will be treated and mentioned somewhat offhandedly or callously, as they would be in this world.</p><p>However, my depiction will neither lionise nor romanticise this sort of a relationship.  If you know me, as either a writer or a person, you’ll know that it is very important to me that I balance this line carefully.  Words of fiction can still have power, I will not use mine to harm.</p><p>Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, not everything is as it seems.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>February 2019 | Sinaloa, Mexico </strong>
</p><p>Felicity took a sharp inhale as the warm air hit her lungs.  It was humid, and dappled with the scent of cigarette smoke.  The moon was high and tinged yellow, judging her from afar as she took her first steps forward.</p><p>She kept her eyes straight, but there was no ignoring the assault weapons carried nonchalantly on the backs of men twice her size.</p><p>Nerves twisted violently in her gut, and the voice she had buried a year ago when she started on this crusade was using all it had to scream at her to turn back.  But she couldn’t, she had come this far.</p><p>
  <em>For Alena.</em>
</p><p>She kept a smile painted on her scarlet lips as she walked up the front stairs of the main house on the compound.  Her shoes clicked with each step she took across the opulent foyer floor of decadent black marble.</p><p>There was no turning back now.</p><p>She was on this path.</p><p>The crowd of girls moved like a wave towards the noise in the ballroom, though a few were picked off by voracious hands and needy mouths.  It reminded Felicity of salmon moving upstream in hordes, only to have a few succumb to predators along the way.</p><p>The ballroom was grand, and she had expected such, but it still overshadowed her expectations in both its grandeur and style.  Diamond chandeliers dripped from the white ceilings, painted with gold trims in the architraves and scotias.  Soft music from a live band wrapped the room in a warmth Felicity felt was undeserved.  Dark, woven rugs mapped out pockets where leather couches and brocade armchairs were placed, and where mahogany tables in the middle were stacked with bricks of cocaine.  Men in sharply tailored suits lingered around the bar, or spoke in hushed whispers in the corners of the room; maybe fifty or so.</p><p>But Felicity only needed one.</p><p>With her heart racing beneath her tight bodice, Felicity’s sapphire eyes searched the room until they found what they were looking for.</p><p>Oliver Queen; an enigma with pale eyes and a devil’s smile.</p><p>The person she was looking at across the room seemed so different to the first time she had seen him; an image on a computer screen, a name lost amongst the chaos.  Her only clue.</p><p>She took another breath.<br/>It was shaky.  Troubled.</p><p>
  <em>For Alena.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Before she saw him, he saw her.  An embering cigarette between his calloused fingers, with a column of sickly sweet smoke spiralling up from it.</p><p>A glass of single malt, no ice, clutched in his hand as he sat in the darkest corner of the room, where the shadows blended into the warm burgundy walls and the music grew faint.  The fringes is where he made his place, alone, just as he preferred.</p><p>He watched eager men puff out their chests and pick girls from the supply.  He swore they got younger every year, a few looked like they were barely 18.  Of course, they were there of their own free will, but Oliver knew that you didn't turn down a offer from the Cártel de la Sangre.  You just didn't.</p><p>Some looked at ease, they were not new and still hoping to find their way into a bed, to become <em>sanchas</em> (a slang term meaning mistress or “other woman”). Others seemed elated, as if they had been told fanciful stories of gold adornments and lavish parties for the chosen few, they imagined vacations and the love of a dangerous man.  It was all a fallacy. A few appeared scared, nervous.  Those were the ones smart enough to recognise what they had walked in to.</p><p>They were all undoubtedly beautiful; they were only ever sent the best.</p><p>But, one stood out.</p><p>One didn't belong.</p><p>Oliver stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray as he inched forward to the edge of his seat.</p><p>Her skin was porcelain, her smooth shoulders were slender and flawless in the black strapless dress she wore ethereally.  It wrapped tightly around her chest and Oliver could see each breath pushing against the tight confines of the bodice, as though her breasts were suffocating beneath it.  Ruched on one side, it framed her figure of dangerous curves before it dropped from the waist like melted black diamonds.  The fabric caught the light with a shimmer that dipped and swerved into shadows, teasing the eye; begging to be brushed between two fingers.  With a tantalizing split that shred the dress to the top of her thigh, it was apparent it wasn’t a dress you simply admired from afar, <em>no,</em> one had to touch it, brush against it, feel it pull taut, perhaps even taste it.  It was a dress for the senses; and Oliver’s were firing like the pistons on a race car.</p><p>Her hair was golden and draped in beautiful soft curls that she mindlessly brushed over her shoulders as her eyes glanced around the room.  He could not tell their colour from the distance he stood, but he thought them likely blue, perhaps a pale green, and lined in moonless-black.  </p><p>But beyond all that, Oliver noticed one more thing; she was looking for someone.</p><p>He stepped out of the shadows, the glass of whiskey still in his hand.  Her eyes turned towards him, and there they stopped.</p><p>She was looking for him.</p><p><br/> <strong>one year earlier | Starling City 2018</strong></p><p>“Alena?” Felicity called into their apartment as she kicked the door closed with her foot.  Her words were muffled, her mouth full of the mail she’d collected from downstairs, and her hands full with the Chinese takeout she’d picked up on her way home from work.</p><p><em>Work,</em> a good enough job for the 28 year old MIT graduate as the head of the IT department at Kord Industries.  It afforded her a small office and a reasonable paycheque.  It was the type of job that nobody really noticed so long as things were going well, and under Felicity’s watchful eye; they always went well.  It afforded her a life away from the water cooler, and she was absolutely okay with that.</p><p>An ordinary, mundane life that nobody really paid all that much attention to.  She led a simple life; or at least that was how she had structured it to appear…</p><p>Her roommate Alena Whitlock also worked downtown as a researcher in the analytics department of another faceless corporation.  It was a position undeserving of her talent, but for the very same reasons Felicity carried on in a job that barely utilized half her skillset, Alena, three years Felicity’s junior, wiled her workdays away in air-conditioned simplicity.</p><p>Some time ago Felicity had taken the younger woman under her wing, likely because she reminded her so much of herself; ambitious, brilliant, idealistic.  Both orphans to varying degrees; Felicity having lost her mother a few years back and estranged from her father since birth, and Alena having a tumultuous and estranged relationship with both of her parents, the two girls had grown immensely close, and while Alena was far more impetuous and reckless than Felicity, they were more than friends, and Felicity viewed Alena as a sister.</p><p>A sister who was nursing an awful cold and had requested Chinese food for dinner; a request Felicity was happy to oblige.</p><p>With the delicious smell wafting about the small inner-city apartment, Felicity was surprised that Alena hadn’t appeared in her flannel PJs with her chopsticks at the ready.</p><p>In fact, Felicity soon noted, the apartment was silent.<br/>Completely silent.</p><p>“Alena?” she called out a second time as she set dinner and the mail down on their small café table with mismatched chairs.<br/><em>Silence.</em><br/>She wandered deeper into the apartment, ducking her head around the corner into the small alcove kitchen neither of them used to do anything more than heat up leftovers and cook Ramen; it was empty.  Not even a coffee cup sitting in the sink, which was odd given Felicity was almost positive she had left hers there that morning as she was running too late to wash it.</p><p>She started down the hall.  “Alena?” she said softly outside the bathroom door, but as she leaned on it, Felicity realised it was unlocked and the bathroom was empty – and, just like the kitchen, spotless.  She smiled imagining Alena finally picking up that Sailor Moon towel she always left on that one spot on the floor.  It had become a joke between the roommates and Felicity didn’t think she would see a day that towel was not scrunched up in the corner.</p><p>After the bathroom, Felicity headed down the hall.  She poked her head into her own room and wasn’t surprised that it was empty; they respected each other’s privacy.  It was a precursory look and Felicity spent barely 10 seconds scanning the familiar corners of her room.  She left her handbag just inside the door and continued to the end of the hall; Alena’s room.</p><p>The door was closed and there didn’t appear to be any light emanating from underneath the door into the dim hallway.  Felicity knocked softly.  “Alena?” she said close to the door.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>She knocked a second time and then reached for the door handle.  She paused as she thought she heard something from behind the door, but when no other sound came, she opened the door and looked in.</p><p>The curtains were drawn and the room was dark.  But the third floor window was open and a gentle breeze from outside lifted the curtain just enough to let the late afternoon sun illuminate Alena’s double bed.</p><p>It was empty.</p><p>And made.</p><p>Alena never made her bed.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Being the preface, the chapter is a little shorter than normal, but hopefully enough to whet your appetite.  I'd love to know what you think.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Next update will be Monday/Tuesday</strong>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://twitter.com/Someonesaidcake/status/1223739136286134272?s=19"> <strong>|| character bios ||</strong> </a>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Fan video made by the very talented @Olida_magda </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Thank you ❤ I'm honoured </strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <a href="https://someonesaidcake.tumblr.com/post/611466639457894400/i-love-love-love-this-so-much-thank-you-to-the">
    <strong>FULL VIDEO HERE || TUMBLR</strong>
  </a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. || seek</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>Felicity wasn’t sure what she had expected to happen after she made a 911 call; but what she ended up with was definitely not <em>it.</em>  One rookie SCPD cop with a penchant for loudly chewing bubble gum, and his partner, who couldn’t possibly look more bored if he tried.  </p><p>They asked her the questions she expected:<br/>
<em>When was the last time you saw her?</em> “This morning, but I spoke with her an hour or so before I left work.”<br/>
<em>Anything missing?</em> “No, but the house feels different, cleaner,” she had tried to explain it, but she was left with amused stares. <br/>
<em>Are you saying someone broke in, abducted your friend and cleaned your dishes?</em><br/>
A dismissive laugh.</p><p>They asked about boyfriends, <em>she didn’t have one.</em><br/>
They asked about problems at work, <em>not that Felicity knew of.</em><br/>
They asked about problems between the two girls, <em>they were friends.</em></p><p>There was suggestion in their tone and the sniggers that followed, that women couldn’t cohabitate and be friends, that somehow this notion was a fairy tale and that girls would always end up jealous or bitter.  A notion Felicity retorted sternly.</p><p>She showed them to Alena’s room and they poked around.</p><p>Her purse was missing.</p><p>One of the men rifled through her underwear drawer under the guise of seeing if she’d taken any with her.  Felicity thought it odd and frankly disgusting, but something told her Alena was in trouble, and she just wanted them to find her.</p><p>They told her to wait 24 hours and then file a missing person’s report.<br/>
They told her Alena probably ran off with some guy.</p><p>After that, they told her nothing more.</p><p>And Felicity wasn’t prepared to wait around hoping they would.</p><p>Because, what seemed like on the surface to be a simple, mundane life the two roommates shared; in truth, was anything but.</p><p>
  <em>Helix.</em><br/>
<em>Kojo Sledgehammer.</em><br/>
<em>GhostFox Goddess.</em>
</p><p>They were all names that meant nothing to the general populace, but to a small group of hacktivists; cyber criminals as some called them, they were names that systematically and deliberately brought to the fore the dirty little secrets that governments, politicians, and corporations tried to hide.</p><p>They had ideals of changing the world.  Of forcing those in power; literal or commercial, to operate with clean hands and transparency – or face the debilitating consequences of not; data leaks, network lock outs, controlled chaos.</p><p>Consequently, Felicity used every resource she had, from hacking traffic cameras to using government-sanctioned satellites to look for Alena.  She traced bank activity and ran searches on every single car that went up or down that street that day.</p><p>By day 6, she still had nothing.</p><p>It was as though Alena had vanished.</p><p>There was one more thing she could do.  Something the close friends had always promised they wouldn’t as it violated every code they lived by… Felicity sat down at Alena’s desk and opened her laptop, something the computer savant would have never willingly left behind.  What Felicity found was eerie.</p><p>She found <em>nothing.</em></p><p>The computer had been wiped and returned to factory settings.<br/>
No pictures.  No documents.  No programmes.  Nothing.</p><p>Had Felicity’s protégé gone hacking for something she shouldn’t have? Something she’d kept from Felicity?  Felicity had a gut feeling that she soon proved right.</p><p>The information Felicity was able to retrieve from the laptop told her a few things.  Firstly, the fact she found <em>anything</em> meant Alena either wanted her to, or it hadn’t been Alena that had wiped the laptop.  Secondly, no fewer than 20 young girls of differing ages between 18 and 25, and varying ethnicities, social backgrounds, and locations had gone missing from the City in the last three months, and for some reason Alena had been looking into the same.  Not a single newspaper headline had run with that statistic, and the officers that had interviewed Felicity hadn’t mentioned it either.  It didn’t appear to be the first time such a block of missing persons had happened either, from the slithers of information Felicity could piece together, Alena had connected a similar spate in 2012.  </p><p>Finally, it gave her a crumb.  A name; Oliver Queen, and a photograph; black and white and grainy, but enough to be recognised, an officer at the SCPD.</p><p>Only… he wasn’t.  Not anymore.</p><p>After dubiously <em>looking</em> into the Police records, Felicity found out why.  Oliver Jonas Queen, born May 16, 1985.  He made the rank of Detective at the tender (and almost unheard of) age of 25, before which time he had an impeccable service record.  </p><p>Three years later, in 2013, he was suspended and under investigation for drug possession, bribery, racketeering, together with being implicated in no fewer than half a dozen gang-related murders.  He was arrested that same year as his house of cards caved in around him.  On route to his arraignment in the Spring of 2014, Oliver escaped custody in a bloody shootout that claimed the lives of two people, and he hadn’t been seen from since, 4 years.</p><p>Even more curious, the first reported girl missing in 2012 was an 18 year old called Amanda Payne and the officer assigned to her case, none other than Oliver Queen.</p><p>It read like a crime novel, punctuated with drugs and written in blood.  A dirty cop with a cold trail.  But in his smiling headshot, Felicity saw something else; she saw dark blond hair shorn closely, a chiselled jawline with just a hint of a bristly beard, azure eyes that smiled warmly at the lens, a tiny smile in one corner of his full lips, and a laughing dimple.  She didn’t see a killer; she saw a guy who sat across the bar smiling until he plucked up the courage to come over.  She saw kindness.</p><p>So, what had changed?</p><p>Everything after that discovery had been a thread that Felicity couldn’t stop pulling at.  Deep in the darkest recesses of the internet she found names, and places, and she found the Cártel de la Sangre – <em>The Blood Cártel.  </em></p><p>She learned their secrets and she followed their trails.  She tumbled down a rabbit hole that consumed her, and walked a path that took her to the line… and then, barely hesitating, she crossed it.</p><p>She crossed over into a world that was everything you were taught to fear, a world that her every instinct told her to flee from.  But she couldn’t.  Not until she was done.</p><p>
  <em>For Alena.</em>
</p><p>She followed the money, and she followed the drugs, until, eventually, she heard whispers of Alena.  Those whispers led her to El Paso and then over the border into Mexico and down the coast to Sinaloa.  It was there that Felicity bribed her way onto the bus of girls who were being sent to entertain members of the Blood Cártel, in the hopes that she would find some answers.  In the desperate hope that she might find Alena.</p><p>Just like she found him.</p><p>Oliver Queen.</p><p>
  <strong>| present day</strong>
</p><p><br/>
She knew by rite his eyes were blue and his complexion pale, but the shadows he stood in made it impossible to tell.  His hair was darker than she had seen it, longer too.  It was swept back, but rogue sections fell forward over his ears.  His suit was dark and tailor made for his physique.  His broad shoulders pulled the jacket taut and he wore no tie.  The ivory shirt underneath was opened to the third button and a dapple of hair could be seen poking out above it.</p><p>His lips wore no expression and she thought his eyes soulless and dark, though perhaps that was simply because she knew no one with a soul could leave a trail like he had.</p><p>She forced a smile onto her lips and it spurred him forward.  His strides were long and determined, and his eyes were hotly focused on only one thing; her.</p><p>When he reached her, Oliver took her wrist without a word passing between them, and escorted her from the crowd.  His touch was warm, almost hot, and his grip, while not tight, left no room for Felicity to escape it.  He walked decisively and with her lagging a step and a half behind, until he stopped at the fringes of the dancefloor just ahead of the band.</p><p>In one fluid movement he spun her to face him and pulled her unyielding against his body.  A breath escape her lips, forced from her lungs as his palm sunk into her lower back and he curled his fingers around her waist.  His hand was firm, his grip near pinching; he wanted her to feel it, to know it, to wear it on her skin.</p><p>His eyes studied her face, mapping every delicate feature.  Her eyes were blue as he had predicted, but they were also turbulent and freckled with a pale turquoise.  She was afraid of him, but hiding it well.</p><p>She should be.</p><p>He laced his fingers into hers and lifted them together before they began to sway in time with the music.  Oliver knew the woman was tense and uncomfortable with how firmly he held her; <em>good.</em>  He needed her to be.  Instinctively she squirmed in his clasp as her chest rose and fell with shallow and uneven breaths.  Remorseless, Oliver pulled her tighter against his brick wall of a chest and ground her hips into his thigh as she stood nearly a foot shorter than him.</p><p>He wanted her uncomfortable.<br/>
He wanted her to realise her mistake.</p><p>The sway of the music loosened her hips and it was clear to Oliver that the pretty stranger was trying to appear at ease, but her eyes couldn't commit and he saw wayward fear in them.</p><p>He leaned his mouth close to her neck, carefully and deliberately running his wet lips over her thrumming pulse point.  The speed of it gave her away and as his mouth reached her ear lobe he nipped a naked spot beside her simple drop earring; a strand of silver chain and one delicate pearl.  </p><p>He heard a hiss escape her lips and her spine shivered below his palm, at the least he had surprised her, and the most he had frightened her.  Her skin was dewy and carried the delicate scent of rosewater, and with every kiss he burned into her neck, her skin erupted in a wake of prickles.</p><p>Felicity held her body against his, no longer fighting the intimacy his hands demanded as he held her close.  She knew who he was, what he'd done, and yet his lips were soft and his kisses were decadent; how could she reconcile the two?</p><p>As they swayed, she stole a few looks into the dark fringes of the room to study her surroundings, perhaps she was even searching for Alena in their faces; <em>did they know her? Was she here?</em>.  A naked girl lay spread on a nearby table, her waifish frame was pulled taut by a man in an untailored grey suit while another man carefully lined a trail of cocaine, powdery and white like a fresh snow flurry, between her small, olive-hued breasts.</p><p>A sharp sound tore Felicity's attention and well her body jarred reactively, Oliver kept her rigid against him.</p><p>An older man with salt and pepper hair stood over a young woman in torn clothes.  Felicity recognised her, she had been on the bus with them.  She was cowering on the floor, making her appear so much smaller than the man that stood over her.  The man in a smoking jacket and charcoal trousers grabbed a fist full of the woman's beautiful chestnut tresses.  She cried out and Felicity tried to pull away, desperate to help the girl as he pulled her towards the door.</p><p>“Silencio,” he whispered in Felicity's ear as his fingers strangled her waist until she stopped fighting him.  His voice was raspy and deep.  <em>Hush.  Silence.</em></p><p>The next words out of his mouth were whispered and gritty.  “You don't belong here.”</p><p>She froze, her body unable to sway to the slow music in pretence a moment longer as his warning bled down her skin.</p><p>He released her, but with their fingers still entwined, Oliver lead her quickly towards the door.</p><p>But another hand took Felicity's other wrist and with a sharp tug, her hand slipped from Oliver's grasp.<br/>
“The American never shares his toys,” the other man laughed with a wonderfully delightful smile that seemed wholly out of place with the dark surroundings of the room and what had happened only moments ago.</p><p>He wore light grey trousers and an ashen shirt that he filled out with broad shoulders and a chest you could map beneath the fabric.  As he raised her hand to his lips, he introduced himself with a whisper, “Adrian Chase,” before he kissed the back of her knuckles.</p><p>He hadn’t needed to though, Felicity already knew who he was.  His name, like Oliver’s, had appeared in the small scraps of data Felicity had recovered from Alena’s laptop.  She’d already memorised his face, and knew the place he sat at on the FBI’s most wanted list – a few dozen below Oliver’s.  His history read much like Oliver’s too, but with far less accolades to his name and a stint of 5 years in prison.  That said, his rank in the Cártel was almost the same as Oliver’s and he was certainly just as dangerous.</p><p>His English was flawless, but his accent wove through each of his words, and his face was far more animated as he studied her.</p><p>“You are stunning,” he remarked as he turned her slowly like a ballerina.  “Isn’t she stunning Oliver?” he asked coyly as his fingers delicately coasted up Felicity’s ribs.<br/>
“No more than the rest,” Oliver answered with a cold glare that sliced through Felicity.<br/>
“He’s no lady’s man,” Adrian chuckled as he wrapped his arms around Felicity’s waist and danced with her.  “It has been so long since we’ve had someone like you join our parties,” he continued while he grazed his knuckles down her cheek.</p><p>“How long has it been Oliver?” he asked, and Oliver simply shrugged.  “Maybe a year,” Adrian answered himself.</p><p><em>Alena,</em> Felicity wondered to herself.  It was possible.</p><p>He dipped her so her back arched in his palm and his lips grazed up the front of her dress, falling away at her breasts.  “She smells delicious,” he purred, it was taunting Oliver and he knew it.  The American, as he called him, never cared too much for these parties, and even less for the girls they brought in.  <em>Until tonight.</em></p><p>When he snapped her back upright, Oliver was gone.  Adrian Chase hadn’t been the man she was looking for, but he could still be useful.<br/>
“The last girl here that was like me,” Felicity started as she swept her hands across Adrian’s shoulders.  This wasn’t her first time extracting information the old fashioned way, though she preferred a keyboard and an all access pass to the FBI and Interpol databases, she wasn’t above dancing with a few devils where needed.  “What did she look like?”<br/>
A uneven smile creased his lips.  “Darker hair, smaller breasts,” he remarked impishly.<br/>
“American like me?” Felicity asked as she played with the short strands of hair at the nape of his neck.<br/>
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said calmly while his hands moved to her rear.</p><p>Felicity swallowed heavily, as she fought for a response.  But, before she could wrangle one, Adrian led her to an empty pocket of the room, sat her down on a leather sofa, and lit a cigarette he pulled from his pocket.</p><p>She sat perched on the edge of the sofa, shrouded in shadows and the hazy curtain of cigarette smoke as Adrian knelt in front of her, with the rolled cigarette pressed between his smiling lips.  He took a drag in, held it for a few seconds, and then blew it out like a spiralling smoke stack.</p><p>“People should paint such beauty,” he announced before he kissed his lips around the cigarette stem again.</p><p>She could feel his eyes on her, following every small movement, every fractured breath.<br/>
“Take off your panties please,” he asked gently before he stubbed out his cigarette and crawled closer.<br/>
Felicity bit her lip.  She had known the pretence with which she had gotten through the door.  She knew she needed access around the house, she knew what she had to do.</p><p>She knew what line she was willing to cross.</p><p>She leaned forward and pouted coquettishly.  “I'm not wearing any.”<br/>
He smiled as his fingers gently ran up the inside of her leg.  “I want to kiss you mi ángel,” he whispered.<br/>
Felicity readied her lips, but he stopped her with his finger and a breathy laugh.  “Not there,” he said as he pushed her legs roughly apart.</p><p>He licked his lips.  “In there.” <br/>
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Felicity played into his game.<br/>
“Does it matter?” he shrugged, before he whimsically added one word, “asking.”</p><p>Holding her legs open at the knees, Adrian began to kiss up the inside of her silken thigh.  A tingle echoed through her body, but it was not distinctly pleasure.</p><p>The last year had changed her.</p><p>He pushed her dress up around her waist and Felicity left it to drape there like a puddle of ink.  His touch was surprisingly gentle and his kisses carried a tenderness she hadn't expected.</p><p>But the truth was, he hadn't asked her name, neither of them had.  They didn't need that and she wouldn't offer it.  They wanted one thing from her, sex.  And she wanted one thing in return, information.  </p><p>His kisses lingered at the soft creases of Felicity’s knees, with his tongue dipping between them.  The scent of his smouldering cigarette still lingered in the air and her toes fisted in her shoes as Adrian dragged his tongue up the inside of her thigh and inhaled her sex with a deep, ravenous growl.</p><p>Adrian sat back on his heels and pressed his thumbs into her knees.  He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, but nothing beyond a gravelly growl left his lips, after which he wet them in anticipation.</p><p>He started low at the inside of her thigh, marking her skin with warm kisses before he blew across them with tepid air.  Her eyes hooded and a smile stayed lofty on her lips, while he watched her with focused pools of honey.</p><p>“Was she American?” Felicity breathed, teasing the shorts of his hair as his lips reached her apex.  He nipped her thigh and a raspy hiss gushed from her lips, a sound Adrian appreciated with a low hum.<br/>
She could feel his breath against her sex, ragged and warm, but no part of him touched her there; not yet.<br/>
“American yes,” he finally answered and he rewarded himself with a delicate flick of his tongue through her folds.  “But not like you.”<br/>
Felicity rolled her hips which lifted her body off the seat of the sofa and grazed her sex against his waiting mouth.  “Not like me how?” she purred.</p><p>He sucked her lips, swelling his mouth around her, as his fingers twisted tighter into her thighs.  He looked up at her, over the pooled fabric that sat high on her lap before he spoke into her sex.  “Questions, questions,” he sighed, and as he spoke both his breath and the tip of his tongue brushed against her folds.<br/>
She smiled, wanton and practiced.  “I just want to know if I’m special,” she remarked coyly.<br/>
The answer satisfied him as he dropped his eyes and lapped at her folds.  She moaned, loud enough that he would hear as her nails raked his scalp.</p><p>His hands ran up from her knees to take her firmly at the waist where he tipped her hips up and opened her body wider to him.  His tongue sluiced between her folds, the muffled sounds of his hums and moans reverberating through her sex and making her body quiver.</p><p>Precisely he found her clit and rolled the tip of his tongue over her hooded nub, which made Felicity’s toes curl numbly.  And, when he had decided he had teased her enough, he grazed his teeth around the edge and sat back on his heels once again.</p><p>“You are special, she wasn’t even here to party,” Adrian smiled.<br/>
“You didn’t party with her?” Felicity pouted, as she thumbed his wet lips.<br/>
He kissed her hand and shook his head, “no one did.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Oliver could feel the ice melting as the outside of the crystal tumbler grew wet and cold with condensation, which felt like somewhat of a relief as it bled into his blazing hand.  He could see her, his view afforded him a perfect view even.</p><p>He didn’t think she could see him, her eyes were fixed on the ones between her silken thighs, the one tasting her; enjoying her.  He was used to seeing people that didn’t see him.  That was what made him so valuable, he lived his life in shadows and he did what others couldn’t; or wouldn’t.</p><p>He knew she would fetch a price.<br/>
He’d seen it before.</p><p>He blew a puff of smoke out through his lips and set his cigarette down on the lip of the ashtray.<br/>
He had a job to do.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>With her dress straightened Felicity sat quietly on the sofa and carefully unthreaded one of her earrings.  Adrian had left a few moments before, licking his lips and insisting that after the party she return to his room.  She had smiled, and nodded, and he had left.  </p><p>Ensuring no one was watching, Felicity dropped her earring down the side of the sofa cushion.  She had no way of knowing if it was close enough to wherever the modem sat in the house, but if she was playing the odds, it would likely have a close radius that would include one end of the ballroom, she hoped.  With the pearl shaped transmitter, Felicity might be able to hijack their network.  If she could do that, then she could look around before anyone even knew she was there.</p><p>She set her eye on the corner she’d seen Oliver emerge from earlier that night, and with Adrian getting his cock sucked by an expressively loud woman in a red mini dress, she knew he was occupied and wouldn’t be returning to her any time soon.</p><p>Most of the party had slipped away or dropped into a cocaine stupor, and Felicity walked the ballroom without being accosted.</p><p>The corner was empty, the table cleared of any drugs, although a recently lit cigarette balanced on the edge of a black ashtray.  She took off the other earring, but it was still in her hand when a raspy voice spoke from behind her.<br/>
“What's your name?” Oliver asked.  Almost whispered, her ears straining to hear him.<br/>
She turned to find him close to her, leaning in towards her.<br/>
“Megan,” she lied, standing her ground as his hand reached towards her.</p><p>But it never touched her, instead he lifted the cigarette from it's perch and carried it to his mouth.  It was then she noticed the tattoos on his hands.  Recent photos of the once model detective were few and far between, for the most part, the one they dubbed <em>El Silencio</em>, a moniker meaning The Silent, was a recluse.  Or at least lived in the shadows of the world.  </p><p>The first ink she saw were the words “Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente”, in three small lines, that literally translated was ‘Eyes that don’t see, heart that doesn’t feel’, or “what you don’t know won’t hurt you” on his right hand.  Above that each knuckle of his fingers included a digit, altogether creating the number, from left to right, 5354.</p><p>On his left hand where he held a fresh drink, was printed an eagle in flight on the back of his hand, it’s wings spanning the whole breadth of his hand, and the centre was made to resemble a haunting skull in its feathers.  Felicity knew this to be the mark of the Blood Cártel, and each recognised member would have something similar tattooed onto his body.</p><p>Through the gap in his shirt, Felicity saw what appeared to be another at the centre, but towards the left side of his chest.  She could make out no more than barbed lines that were thick black and tapered like sharp thorns that curled around the same side of his neck, poking just above his collar.  Above it sat a word in cursive that she couldn’t read.</p><p>He wore two rings on his right hand, and none on his left.<br/>
“Why are you here Megan?” he asked before he threaded the cigarette through his parted lips, while he kept his eyes on her, just watching.<br/>
“I heard it was fun,” she replied as she snuck her hand behind her back and let the earring go.  It dropped onto the rug behind her feet and, without breaking eye contact, she pushed it under the sofa.  The gap was a few inches and without looking, Felicity had no idea how far under she had managed to get it.  She only hoped it was far enough away to not be spotted by anyone cleaning nearby.</p><p>Oliver pulled the cigarette from his mouth and a puff of smoke soon followed.  He offered her his drink, but when she didn’t take it from him, Oliver put the glass to his lips and tipped it back.  In the dim light and fighting with shadows, it looked as though Oliver took a drink before he once again offered her the glass.</p><p>“Have fun Megan,” he encouraged, and while his voice remained deep and raspy, for there first time there were hints of something else threaded through; a lightness.<br/>
She held the glass and took a sip.</p><p>The whiskey was strong and aged and it slid down the back of her throat like spiced, warm honey.  She’d taken barely a taste, but in moments her hands felt numb and she felt the glass slipping from her grip.  Oliver caught it and his arm swooped around her back, holding her as her legs too began to numb.  He reached down and set the laced drink onto the table, gently soothing her with a hushed <em>ssshhhh.</em></p><p>Her body felt faint, weak, and her beautiful eyes gave themselves over to fear.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and those were the last words Felicity heard.</p><p>She fell limp into his arms and Oliver lifted her without strain.  She was tiny in his arms and he walked easily towards the door.  No one cared, they never did.  Her blushed cheek rested against his chest and while he carried her, Oliver noticed her earrings were gone.  It was a shame, they had draped from her ears beautifully.</p><p>He carried her across the marble foyer and down the front steps.  In the driveway waited a taxi, and as Oliver approached the driver got out and opened the door.  Wordlessly, Oliver placed the unconscious body of the girl he knew as Megan into the backseat, buckled her seatbelt across her chest, and closed the door.</p><p>The two men never spoke, and the driver got back into the car while Oliver got in on the other side of the back seat.  He lifted her head as the car drove off and cautiously checked her pulse; it was steady and pronounced.</p><p>The drive took 20 minutes until the taxi pulled up outside a non-descript motel with a flashing neon vacancy sign that was missing a few bulbs.  The air outside was rank, and a drizzle of rain made the cracked sidewalk glisten. </p><p>Oliver carried Felicity towards the small office, when a small, older man came out to meet him, with a key hanging from his sun-spotted hands.</p><p>No one asked questions.<br/>
They never did.<br/>
Not while he wore his signet ring on his right little finger.</p><p>No one cared.</p><p>He took the key from the man with narrow, warning eyes, and the man simply nodded.  He knew his place.</p><p>Oliver carried Felicity to the ground floor room.  Room number 7.  He opened the door with the key and closed the door with his foot.  The air inside the room was not much better than the air outside.  It was musty and a heavy layer of dust had settled on the light fixtures and the windowsill.</p><p>He lay Felicity onto the bed and checked her pulse again; still strong.  He found himself idly tucking her wavy hair behind her ear before he took a light blanket from the foot of the bed and lay it over her.  He counted out a few hundred American dollars from his wallet, before he turned on the lamp  beside the bed and walked to the door.  </p><p>Oliver took one last look at her on the bed before he turned off the main light, closed the door and locked it.</p><p>That was enough for tonight.</p><p>He walked back towards the street, but diverted his path behind the motel where he found a large green dumpster.  He opened one side and dropped Felicity’s room key inside, atop of two others with the same large brown tags, before he pulled a phone from his pocket and sent a new message to an unsaved number.</p><p>
  <em> <strong>3, 11, 7 </strong> </em>
</p><p>He dropped the phone back into his pocket and left the way he'd come.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. || take</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Oliver had been awake for hours, long enough to watch the sun rise through his opened curtains, and long enough to hear the house slowly come alive with activity.  But, he’d spent dawn and into twilight lifting weights in the corner of his room, before he sat back in his bed, restless and tortured while he observed the sky change from greyish-blue to vivid orange, before it dulled to a cloudless pale blue.  His bed was empty, but his mind was anything but.</p><p>After throwing the covers off his naked body, Oliver slipped out of his bed and anchored his feet to the floor of his third level bedroom.  Like almost every other morning that preceded that one, he made his way to his private bathroom where his feet padded across the terracotta tiles and he turned on the double shower.  When the room was warm and thick with steam, Oliver stepped into the frameless alcove shower and stood underneath the rainfall showerhead.</p><p>With his eyes open, he let the water trek down his face and over his body before he lifted his hands and watched the water bead and drip from the tips of his fingers.  He rolled the bar of soap across his ripped torso, up towards each shoulder and down each arm, repetitive; <em>mindless.</em>  With a soapy trail cascading down his body, Oliver stooped to wash his legs and the creases at the tops of his thighs, front and back.  He set the soap aside and drowned his body in the soothing warm water, while he slowly turned it hotter until his skin could take no more.</p><p>Most people thought in the shower; considered what lay ahead for them during the day, what the night before had shown them.  But not Oliver.  He lived each day in increments, knowing what he done and aware that the fates, <em>god,</em> could call him to account at any time.</p><p>He didn’t linger in the shower, and once his body prickled from the stinging heat, he shut it off and patted himself dry as he stood naked in front of the vanity, his eyes tracing the markings on his body.  They were permanent reminders that inked his skin; an indelible confession for his maker.  After he lathered the underside of his chin and his throat with shaving foam, Oliver lifted the barber’s blade from its hook and stretched his neck taut.</p><p>With slow and meticulous strokes, he shaved the growth with a straight razor and a fixated eye.  Oliver relished the feeling of steel against his skin, knowing how utterly fragile life could be.  The blade was thin and delicate, yet it could be deadly with little more than knowledge and a flick of his wrist. </p><p>Once he was done, Oliver cleaned any remnants of foam from his skin with a hot face towel before he ran a hand through his dark, wet hair.  He barely recognised himself anymore, inside and out.  Where his hair was once neatly trimmed and sandy blond, it was now dark and long enough to swish back towards his crown.  Both changes were necessary, as they had made it easier for him to disappear, to blend in, to <em>escape.</em></p><p>Or perhaps the dark tresses simply reflected his soul.</p><p>With a heavy sigh, Oliver wrapped a towel around his narrow waist and walked out from the bathroom.  </p><p>He didn’t flinch as his eyes landed on a naked woman sprawled on his bed, sitting up on her elbows and watching him with a delightful grin.</p><p>She was young, maybe 20, attractive, with an olive complexion, a slim waist, and full, natural breasts.<br/>
“Máxi sent me,” she purred.  Her English was fractured and Oliver could have conversed with her in Spanish reasonably well, but all the same he answered her in his mother tongue.<br/>
“What for?” he asked as he stripped off his towel and hung it over the bathroom door.</p><p>A fruity moan, practiced but still genuine, floated from her mouth as Oliver ran his fingers through his hair.  Her pink lips were pouted as she replied, “He said he was sorry Chase took your girl and he thought maybe I could help.”</p><p>She lifted up a blonde wig she’d kept behind her back and twirled it on one finger.  Oliver walked towards her, stopping close enough to pluck at the strands of golden hair.<br/>
“So I fuck you while I imagine her?” he asked darkly and her small head nodded as she studied him with large brown eyes.</p><p>“What’s your name?” he enquired before he took another step closer, positioning his body between her legs, with his flaccid cock just ahead of her wet lips.<br/>
“Whatever you want it to be,” she whispered.</p><p>His hand grabbed her face and she sighed as he buried his finger and thumb into her cheeks.  Then he kissed her roughly, his weight pushing her back down onto the bed.  Her fingers knotted around his neck, sharply tugging at his damp hair while she groaned desperately against his lips.</p><p>There was no doubt he could sink himself into her and fuck her blithely until he spilled into her recesses and then left her just as he’d found her.  But he was in no mood for it.  He severed the kiss, brutally incomplete, before he pushed himself upright.</p><p>The girl blinked up at him, confused, as Oliver let his fingers coast down her concaved stomach.<br/>
“I don’t think you could handle me,” he remarked as he flicked his fingers off at her navel.<br/>
She spread her legs wide and drew enticing strokes through her folds.  “Try me.”</p><p>Oliver smiled before he drew back and walked across the room to his drawers.  He dressed in faded black jeans, a leather belt, and a grey shirt he wore open to the second button.  By the time he was finished, the girl was sitting at the foot of his bed, with her feet tucked under her ample bottom, simply watching him.</p><p>He found where she had laid her clothes on the seat of his armchair and he walked the same to her on the bed.<br/>
“Tell Máxi thanks, he has exquisite taste but he should keep you for himself,” Oliver commented as he handed her the clothes.<br/>
She smiled kindly as she took the clothes from him, slipped off the bed and pulled on the small cotton dress she’d come in.</p><p>“Someday you’ll find one,” she remarked softly as she pulled her long, caramel locks out from under her dress.<br/>
“One what?” Oliver asked while he opened his door for her.<br/>
She walked towards it and paused in the doorway.  Her smile was kind and knowing.<br/>
“The one woman who <em>can</em> handle you.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Alone once again, Oliver closed and locked his door before he carried a cigarette and lighter out onto the patio.  He looked out towards the ocean in the far distance as he lit the cigarette poised between his lips.  He dropped the lighter on the glass table beside him and leaned his elbows on the railing as he took a long drawl of his cigarette.</p><p>He was tired.<br/>
The last few years had exacted their toll, and he was unsure how much more he had left to give.</p><p>His dreams were haunted, but his waking moments were no easier.</p><p>Still, he focused on the distant blue and called on memories that he often left alone.  His father loved boats, his mother not so much, and his youngest sister was happy enough aboard the luxury kind.  He’d lived a privileged life once, but his past accolades were his own and brought with diligence and hard work, instead of with a connected last name and a trust fund.</p><p>For a moment he wondered what they must have thought of him now.</p><p>
  <em>If it was only half as damning as what he thought of himself…</em>
</p><p>He smoked the rest of the cigarette without thinking about them again until the embers scolded his fingers.  He stubbed out what remained and then he left, just as 8:30am rolled over. </p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>In the carpeted hall, Oliver met Máxi, who slapped his back with a cheerful greeting.<br/>
“You returned my gift!” he exclaimed, and Oliver simply smiled.</p><p>Máxi (Máximo) Álvarez, was the Cártel’s Patriarch’s, Javier Álvarez, youngest son.  He was tall, standing at Oliver’s height, but with the slim, toned build of an athletic runner.  He'd gone to private school in Europe and had lived a privileged and affluent life.  He was young, 22, and eager to please his father. But he was not made for this dark world, despite his last name and his lineage.  His mother, Javier's third wife, had kept the raven haired, blue-eyed boy sheltered from the shadows, and, in fact, he'd only been at the compound for a little over a year.</p><p>Máximo's mother, Elena, said to be the only one of Javier's wives he actually loved, had been the daughter of a wealthy Italian businessman.  She had met and married Javier after only a few months, and fallen pregnant with Máxi shortly after.  Both the marriage and the spirited youngest child had softened the crime lord, a turn of events which was ultimately seen by his rivals, and his brothers, as a sign of weakness, and a rival Cártel took the opportunity which presented itself.  But, during the attempt made on Javier’s life, it was his beloved Elena who took a bullet.  She survived, barely, but the child she was carrying, a daughter, did not.  Elena blamed Javier, and he too blamed himself.  She left and returned to Italy with their young son.  More telling, however, was that Javier let her without repercussion.  </p><p>Máxi, however, was drawn to a world he barely understood because of watered down tales and utter fallacies, and he had travelled to Sinaloa in spite of his mother's pleas.  It had been then that Elena had asked Oliver to watch over Máxi, he had a good soul she couldn't stand to see blackened.  For the most part, Oliver had by keeping him under his wing, teaching him how to fix cars and chop drugs.  While Javier was deeply fond of his youngest child, Máxi's reputation for having a zero body count had begun to reflect badly on him, and there was much murmuring within the Cártel.</p><p>There was only so much Oliver could do.</p><p>“Ah but she was beautiful,” Máxi cheered, his Italian accent coating the edges of his excited words. “And her breasts!” he exclaimed as he pinched his fingers together, kissed them, and tossed them dramatically away from his lips; <em>a chef's kiss.</em><br/>
“She was quite lovely, perhaps you should keep her for yourself,” Oliver remarked coyly.<br/>
Máxi's baby-blue eyes lit up with mischief.  “Perhaps I will, mi carnal.” <em>My brother.</em></p><p>They continued down the curved, stone staircase, walking towards the boisterous noise coming from across the foyer in the informal dining room.  They were often the last to arrive for breakfast, and it sounded like that day was no exception.</p><p>“The girl last night, she found her way to your bed?” Máxi asked as he rubbed his hands together gleefully.<br/>
Oliver laughed “Never the bed Máxi,” he teased, as he ruffled the younger man's hair.<br/>
“Of course, only wives and girlfriends get the bed,” Máxi remarked, his tone alive with a laugh.  “But you had her yes?” he asked after his laugh had died down.<br/>
They reached the bottom of the staircase and Oliver paused.  “Javier would let you,” Oliver said, his voice barely above a whisper as he glanced over to the front door.</p><p>His inference was not lost on the younger man.  If Máxi wanted to leave, his father cared enough about the young man, that he would allow him to without consequence.<br/>
But Máxi simply laughed.  “You say that to me every morning Oliver,” he said with a lingered grin.  Máxi turned away from the door and headed for the breakfast table.<br/>
“You should have fucked her Oliver!” he announced as he looked over his shoulder and winked.</p><p>Oliver caught up to Máxi just as he neared the dining room, and the two comrades walked in together.  They were the last ones there, and a conversation has already been batted around parts of the table.</p><p>At the head of the table sat the notorious Capos himself, Javier Álvarez, with a cigar in one hand and a cooked breakfast sitting in front of him.  He was olive-skinned with the same light eyes as his youngest son.  He wore his age well, and each distinguished line on his face made him appear wise.  A truth that had seen them rise to one of the most prolific and notorious Cártels during his reign.</p><p>Beside him to the left was Javier’s oldest son, Matías Álvarez.  Like his father he was tall and dark with an olive complexion.  The 35 year old wore a fresh scar over his left eye and a permanent snarl on his face, and yet most would still declare him handsome.  A full beard defined his chiselled jawline and honey eyes hid a mean streak.  It went unsaid, but understood, that he would one day take his father’s place.  Matías had a hand in everything the Cártel dabbled in, and he had never been afraid to get his hands dirty.  </p><p>The same could not be said about the man sitting next to him, his brother in law, Michael Dean.  An American much like Oliver, Michael – or Mikel as they called him, when his California accent baited them too much – was married to Javier’s daughter, Ana.  The two lived in Los Angeles with Javier's first wife, and the Cártel’s female lynchpin.  They sold drugs to the A-listers and prostitutes to the C-listers.  The Valley-export stayed clear of any “messy” sides of the business, but was not above paying someone else to get involved, someone much like the man sitting alongside him.</p><p>Jacó de Silva was considered by most, insane.  He barely spoke and his eyes moved sharply around the room, responding to all sounds much like cats' ears would.  The heavily tattooed predator carved crosses onto the wooden handle of his favourite straight-back blade as mementos of each life he had snuffed out.  They had become nearly impossible to count.  He was ruthless and focused, and he never missed.</p><p>Beside him was Adrian nursing a pot of black coffee and little else.  It had not been an insatiable appetite for torture and death that had found Adrian in the Cártel (unlike Jacó), but rather as the head of the cocaine shipment and supply network, Adrian was best known for his suave tongue, quick wit, and his frequent testing of the wares.  Some would say the coffers would be tripled if Adrian didn’t so habitually partake.  It was also said, and believed, that Adrian Chase could sell a brick of cocaine to his own grandmother, full price.</p><p>At the foot of the table sat Javier's oldest and dearest friend, Nicolás Moreno.  The two men in their late 50s had grown up together, their fathers also served together as Blood and Javier's first wife was Nicolás' younger sister, making Matías and Ana his nephew and niece respectively.  Nicolás didn’t trust anyone who hadn’t come from generations of Blood men; Oliver included, and because of such, he kept his secrets close to his chest.</p><p>With Javier's second son, Ángel, Nicolás ran the more darker side of the business.  They armed the streets and sold girls like commodities.  The most blood spilled was by the two of them and their ledgers were dripping scarlet.  While Nicolás was ruthless and cutthroat, it was Ángel Álvarez who was real trouble.  Ángel killed for sport and tortured for practice.  The life of another person meant nothing to him, and he made no secret of that fact.  He was decidedly handsome with cropped dark hair, a caramel complexion, and a few days’ growth along his jawline.  His lure was in his charming smile and his chestnut eyes, but make no mistake about it, Ángel was no reflection of his celestial namesake.</p><p>His mother had been Javier's second wife, and his most volatile.  Gloria Álvarez was brutal, cunning, and manipulative.  She had made a name for herself, and most girls that visited the compound soon learned to fear her the most, even beyond the men.  While they were divorced after only 2 years, Javier's shortest marriage, he could not be rid of her that easily, and she now wore the title of Javier's fifth, and current, wife after wife number 4, a young and zealous beauty queen looking for holidays in the Rivera and designer shoes, was shot in a drive by massacre while at the hair salon.  There were rumours of course that Gloria had orchestrated such a hit, but a small rival gang from Durango were blamed and their entire crew, and all those associated with them, were gunned down without mercy.  No one survived and the Cártel took over their stock and clients like it was a business merger.</p><p>The last man sitting at the table was Juan Díaz, but most men knew him as “el fortachón”, <em>The Wall.</em>  He had been Javier’s bodyguard for near on 20 years, but he was much more than that.  He was the size of two men, his muscles had muscles, and he was a man of little words, preferring to speak in short Spanish sentences or grunts.  He could kill with his bare hands and often preferred to.</p><p>With Oliver, their clean-up guy with his ear to the street, and Máxi, the protégé set to take Matías’ place, that made 10.</p><p>Ten extremely powerful and volatile men.  Ten men that ran an empire.</p><p> <strong>.|.</strong></p><p>Talk around the table had moved into business, and Adrian was advising of the expansion taking place through the States and ventures further offshore.  The reaches of the Cártel were far and invasive.</p><p>As Oliver and Máxi took their seats, Ángel began talking robustly about the healthy cut the Cártel had made on some of the girls last night as three had been sold to invited, ergo wealthy, guests; clearly trying to ‘one-up’ Adrian.</p><p>Máxi expressed surprise.  “I didn’t realise they were for sale,” he remarked.<br/>
Ángel glared across the table at his younger half-brother.  The animosity Ángel held for Máxi was no secret, and neither was the fact that much of Javier’s affection went to his youngest child.  The child born from what he would class as love, if ever a Capos could find such a thing.<br/>
“Everything is for sale for the right price,” Ángel spat, his hand tensing around a butter knife.</p><p>Oliver glanced at Máxi and hushed him with his eyes; a fight at the breakfast table was no way to start the morning.  Thankfully, Máxi admitted defeat with a simple nod and a small, “of course,” directed at his half-brother.<br/>
 <br/>
Events like the one held last night weren’t predominantly to sell girls, those happened far more secretively.  But, the deep pocket contacts that were invited to such events simply had to ask and make it worth the effort, and the girls would be delivered to them, or left for them to collect from a motel room.</p><p>“If it weren’t for Adrian, I would have sold another one to José Fernandez as well,” Ángel huffed angrily.<br/>
Adrian looked up, surprised, and blinked over the rim of his coffee mug.  <br/>
“The blonde American you ate out on the sofa, he wanted her,” Ángel reminded brashly.<br/>
Adrian licked his lips and smiled.  “She was delicious,” he said as he kept his eyes on Oliver with a smirk on his lips that could be seen peeking above his mug.<br/>
“So he licked her cunt, what’s the big deal?” Matías remarked callously. “The last one you’d sold him had been fucked by four men at once.”  <br/>
He jammed his fork into a sausage and took a bite while he shrugged.<br/>
“Adrian took off with her,” Ángel said through gritted teeth.<br/>
Chase set his coffee cup down.  “No I didn’t,” he protested.  “I might have snorted a shit load of cocaine,” he laughed brightly, “but after I was done getting my cock sucked, I couldn’t find her.”</p><p>“Then where the fuck did she go?” Ángel roared, as he slammed his fist onto the table.<br/>
Javier hushed his middle son with a pointed glare.  “Perhaps someone is doing a better job at selling them than you are,” he remarked, and Ángel’s face twisted with rage he could not express.</p><p>A forced smile tweaked the edge of his lips.  “We have another auction coming up in two months, I’m sure José will attend.”<br/>
Javier patted his napkin to his lips and shrugged.  “Perhaps.”</p><p>And that was all that was to be said on that.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>It was after lunch and Oliver was playing pool with Juan, a sore loser at the best of times, when Máxi found him with a troubled look across his face.  He pulled Oliver aside and spoke with him in a hushed voice only the two friends could hear.</p><p>“The girl is here,” Máxi remarked with his hand on Oliver’s shoulder and his eyes bubbled with worry.<br/>
“What girl?” Oliver enquired as he leaned on his pool cue.<br/>
“The blonde,” Máxi said before he slapped Oliver’s chest.  “Your pretty American.”<br/>
Oliver’s eyes pinched; <em>Máxi must be mistaken.  He'd taken care of her.</em><br/>
“She came to the gate asking to see you,” Máxi continued, sensing Oliver wasn’t believing the words coming from his mouth.  “Said her name was Megan.”</p><p>The cue dropped from Oliver’s grasp.<br/>
“Ángel heard, he’s coming down from the back house,” Máxi fretted.</p><p>There were three houses on the compound, the main house was the grandest and largest, and Javier occupied one wing with Gloria, and Juan had a room nearby.  Máxi, Adrian, and Oliver also lived in the main house.</p><p>Matías’ wife and three small children lived off the compound, but his two mistresses lived in the pool house affixed to the main house, and he bounced between the two abodes.</p><p>Nicolás lived in the second largest house with his wife and a string of girls that came and went without anyone learning their names.  His children looked after the Cártel’s interests further south and Oliver rarely saw them.</p><p>The ‘back house’ was a smaller three bedroom house at the far end of the compound.  It was where Ángel lived with two girlfriends.  While the separate houses were mostly reserved for those with wives and families, Javier had demanded that Ángel not stay in the main house.  It was a banishment of sorts that suited both parties.</p><p>This ‘back house’ was about a 10 minute walk away.</p><p>“If he sells her to José,” Máxi paused, and Oliver knew why.  The man touted to buy her never kept a girl for much longer than a few months, and they were never spoken of or seen again.</p><p>Without a word Oliver left the room with Máxi following hotly behind him.  He found the petite blonde standing between two beefy men.  She was dressed casually in a white bandeau top and a black mini skirt.</p><p>By the look in Oliver’s eyes, Felicity suspected she shouldn’t have been there, and perhaps he was right.  But, after she had woken up in the strange motel room with no recollection of how, Felicity took the money beside the bed and found her way back to her own motel.  She had spent the rest of the night trawling through the compound’s network – a stroke of luck had put her ‘earring’ close enough to hack the same.</p><p>And, she had found Alena.</p><p>Or at least she knew she had been there, digitally and quite possibly physically.  Her calling card was left scattered across the system, not because Alena was being careless, but because she must have known Felicity would go looking.</p><p>It was recent too, a few months old – over 6 months after she’d vanished.  In the pit of her stomach, Felicity believed she was still alive.  She just had to find her.</p><p>That was what led her there.<br/>
Something written in the clues pointed to Oliver.  Alena had searched him almost obsessively, but dumped much of it into a fragmented mess.  For reasons Felicity didn’t fully understand, her search had started with Oliver and she believed it continued with him too.</p><p>Oliver knew he didn’t have time for words as he took her wrist roughly.  She went with him without fighting and followed as he led her up the staircase and down a narrow hallway.  He opened the door at the end and Felicity hesitated for only a moment before she walked in.</p><p>She heard the door close, and lock, behind her as she realised they were in a bedroom.  She assumed his bedroom. </p><p>Felicity walked towards the middle of his room, memorizing parts of it as quickly as she could; creamy walls and a ceiling with dark exposed beams, umber hued titles spread across the bedroom and underneath ornate rugs.  A large bed with fawn linen and four spire posts of carved wood.  A desk, a chair, a gentle breeze blowing in the open patio doors.</p><p>
  <em>And Him.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>If you want the imagery of the characters please see the Twitter link below</strong>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://twitter.com/Someonesaidcake/status/1223739136286134272?s=19"> <strong>|| character bios ||</strong> </a>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. || claim</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ángel tore an angry hand through his hair.  His voice was loud, and his temperament was even more so.  Threats in Spanish streamed from his mouth as rage twisted his handsome features darkly.  He followed his father into his office with its rich velvets and ashy walls.</p>
<p>The capos seemed less bothered by the blonde’s arrival, and his coolness as he snipped the nib off his Cuban cigar seemed to enrage his middle son.<br/>“Demand he brings her back here,” Ángel raved, his palms hot as they slammed down on his father's polished oak desk.<br/>Javier lit the end and a decadent scent permeated the air.  With his free hand, he smoothed his fingers along the bevelled edge of his desk with methodical strokes.  His lips coiled around the end and he inhaled slowly.</p>
<p>It was a interesting turn given the envelope of cash Oliver had delivered to him that morning.</p>
<p>He exhaled and the smoke floated from his lips.</p>
<p>“We don’t enter his room, it’s not our way.”<br/>That was all he said and his words were final.</p>
<p>Ángel’s honey eyes narrowed and his full lips tightened into a snarl.  “Of course father.”</p>
<p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p>
<p><br/>Oliver stood behind her, silent and close.  Felicity felt her breath quicken and her shoulders stiffen before she turned to face him.</p>
<p>“Why are you here Megan?” he asked her.<br/>She didn't answer, instead her eyes mapped his body in the brightness of daylight, finally appreciating his size, his eyes, his lips - tight and beguiling.  How was this man the same one she had seen?  While her eyes moved about, his stayed tethered to her.</p>
<p>He touched her skin and she didn't shiver as he raised her chin with his broad finger.<br/>“What are you doing here?” he asked again, some impatience in his voice.<br/>She glanced around his arm and looked towards the door they had walked her through moments before.  “Do you want me to go?” Felicity breathed.</p>
<p>His finger slid down the threads of her throat, feeling each tiny swallow she took.  “It's too late for that now.”  He balanced the rough pad near her sternum, letting it float up with each breath she took.</p>
<p>She backed away from him, toward the bed, which caused his eyes to follow.  Her fingertips grazed over the pillowy quilt as her teeth fretted with her full bottom lip.</p>
<p>
  <em>The last year had changed her.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Consumed her.</em>
</p>
<p>“Is this where you fuck me?” Felicity whispered.  The heat of his gaze was scolding as it tracked her hand travelling down her body to rest, fingertips on thighs.  Skin on skin.</p>
<p>“I won't touch you unless you ask,” he promised while he closed the gap between them, half a step at a time. “But, if you ask, know it won't be gentle.”</p>
<p>Felicity danced her fingertips over the hem of her miniskirt as she tried to relax her trembled breaths.  She knew Alena had been here, she had seen her name bouncing around their network. Alena had tried to find something, before something found her.</p>
<p>The only way that afforded Felicity the ability to move about the compound was to be a girlfriend.  She knew that.  </p>
<p>She knew what she needed to do.<br/><em>Consumed.</em></p>
<p>She could feel the post of the bed against her spine as he stood ahead her, shadowing her in a veil of his sheer size.  She laced her fingers behind the post and lifted her eyes until they met with his, bright below a troubled brow.</p>
<p>“I've never been a fan of gentle,” she sighed before she wet her lips.</p>
<p>Oliver leaned closer and his lips grazed her chin as he moved towards her ear.   Her body pressed against his, her scent tangled in his senses.  “Is that a yes?” Oliver whispered, his hot breath fanning down her neck.  </p>
<p>“Yes.”  The word floated off her lips like a gust of wind and the instant it did Oliver tore down her bandeau cotton top, exposing her breasts to the warm, afternoon air.</p>
<p>She had walked into this world and attracted the eyes of all the wrong people; and Oliver included himself in that.  But, he knew that she wouldn’t leave the compound safe.  Her fate had already been marked.  The only way to stop it from being sealed, was to claim her as his own.  However, Oliver knew that marking her as his possession needed to be realistic to their world.  He had to take her; darkly, deeply, completely.  </p>
<p>Possession didn’t come lightly.<br/>A claim had to be made.</p>
<p>He started with the left, cupping her firm breast while his rough thumb grazed over her rosy nipple, back and forth, pulling a taut and raspy breath from her plump lips.<br/>“You would be mine,” he breathed, speaking from the gravelled depths of his chest as he studied the way her nipple hardened beneath his strokes.<br/>Felicity tightened her laced fingers, turning her knuckles bone-white behind her back.<br/>She nodded slowly.<br/>He pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger so tightly that it stole the wind from her lungs.  “Say the words,” he ordered as a moan bled from her lips.<br/>“I'll be yours,” she echoed and Oliver rewarded her with a soothing brush of his thumb around the edge of her sensitive nipple.<br/>“Good.”<br/>There was darkness in his tone, but she felt pleasure at the end of his sensual touch.  She knew she should have feared him, feared what he’d done...who he was, but for a few lucid moments, Felicity gave herself over to the feelings stirring inside her; it wasn’t fear.</p>
<p>He had to believe her.</p>
<p>Oliver stooped until his lips met with his fingers, and after they drifted off her breast his tongue fondled her coiled nipple with wet and deliberate passes, before he blew his tepid breath across the same, making Felicity's breast erupt with prickles.  He soon moved to the other breast, mimicking the same slow and tortuous pleasure, while his eyes focused on the way Felicity marked her bottom lip with her pinched teeth.</p>
<p>Her skin was soft like velvet, beautifully radiant in the light that streamed in through his bedroom windows.  He imagined her body bathed in sunset and sunrise, the shadows caressing her curves, mapping the paths his hands would take.</p>
<p>With the image teasing his mind, Oliver swept his mouth up to the ridge of her dainty breast.  His hungry lips folded around her milky skin and his tongue explored the hints of perfume on her supple skin.  His left hand rested on her chest, with the heel of his palm anchored to her breast bone and his long fingers splayed towards her shoulder, and then he marked her with a scarlet circle by sucking her flawless skin with such ferocity that the superficial blood vessels beneath it ruptured.</p>
<p>The bruise was striking, and Oliver tracked it’s frayed edges with his forefinger.  Violent red against porcelain; stained and marred.  Marked.</p>
<p>
  <em>His.</em>
</p>
<p>He knew her eyes were dewy with unspent tears and that her breath had become shaky and sobbed, but he couldn’t let her leave his room unmarked.  As he straightened his stance, Oliver caught her mouth with his own and kissed her deeply, tracing the seam of her lips with a gentle swish of his tongue.  With the kiss incomplete, Oliver pulled back and watched as Felicity inhaled deeply to catch her breath.</p>
<p>“On the bed Megan,” he requested and she moved without hesitation.  Felicity sat on the edge and the lightly embossed linen billowed either side of her.  His silence was deafening and she found herself shifting on the edge as his haunted eyes coasted down her figure.</p>
<p>He plucked her chin upward and kissed her softly.  Her tongue tentatively stroked the seam of his lips for that second kiss and Oliver opened his mouth to her timid request.  He let her own that kiss while her curious fingers travelled blindly under the hem of his shirt.  He caught both her wrists with one hand and she drew back from the kiss with demonstrably wide eyes.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” she stammered, a rosy flush spreading across her heaving chest like a watercolour painting of sunset.<br/>“Soon,” he appeased her with a smile, soft and genuine.</p>
<p>From his bedside drawer Oliver retrieved a small switch blade with a brushed chrome handle.  Felicity could feel the air hitch in her throat, and her fingers knotted in the bedspread as Oliver opened the blade with a spine-tingling <em>woosh.</em></p>
<p>He touched the tip of the blade flat to her mouth, wet and trembling, but she never took her eyes off him.  Lifting it from her mouth, Oliver glided the knife down her centre, floating it above her skin while fine hairs lifted in its wake, until he reached her top which hung loosely around her waist.</p>
<p>Holding the fabric taut with one hand, Oliver sliced through the thin cotton and it dropped from her body before a sharp gasp escaped her lips.</p>
<p>Oliver bit the blade between his teeth as he used both his hands to explore her bare chest, touching and teasing with rough hands before he wordlessly pulled her to her feet.</p>
<p>Standing dangerously close to each other, Oliver took the knife into his right hand and snaked it around to Felicity's back.  He kissed her a third time, burrowing his tongue into her welcoming mouth as her tentative fingers brushed up the edge of Oliver's bristled jaw.  He moaned into her mouth, letting her know her attentions were welcomed ones.</p>
<p>With a rough pull on her skirt, Oliver shredded through the fabric until it fell, ruined, around her feet.  Left only in a pair of black panties, lace sewn onto satin, Felicity shivered in Oliver’s embrace.  After tucking the blade of his knife into the waistband of his faded black jeans, Oliver walked across the room and closed the open patio doors.</p>
<p>As he made his way back to his claim, Oliver admired each swerve her body made, from the nip of her slender waist, to the carved arch of her back before it rolled into a full rear.  She was unmistakably beautiful.  Her skin was free from scars or markings, and yet she had found herself here.  In the world where everyone had scars; seen and unseen.</p>
<p>She was breathing deeply, and her arms had banded around her body.  She felt exposed, and he could not blame her, but he wasn’t done yet.  He couldn’t be.  Stopping at her side, Oliver's sharp blade tore easily through her delicate panties, and with his breath warming her across the back of her shoulders, he moved to the other side and sliced through them just as easily.</p>
<p>He plucked the mutilated fabric from between her legs and discarded them onto his bedroom floor, alongside her ruined skirt.  Oliver turned the knife in his hand, gripping the blade in his palm, nicking his flesh.  Using the handle, he tapped her crossed arms and reactively Felicity dropped them to her sides, exposing herself completely.</p>
<p>“Have you belonged to another?” Oliver asked, his voice hazy to her ears as he carefully studied her body.  <br/>If she had belonged to another man Oliver would need to remove the mark from her body, however he deemed <em>suitable.</em>  Most burned it away; scarring flesh and purging memories with blinding and sadistic pain.  The smell of burning flesh was not one you forgot, it tainted every breath you took for the rest of your life, and the accompanying screams would haunt your ears, taunting you to death's embrace.</p>
<p>It was his hope she hadn’t been claimed or branded before.</p>
<p>“No,” she breathed in answer to his twisted question while her fingertips fidgeted at her sides.<br/>Oliver scanned her slender shoulders and down over her pert breasts and peachy nipples, and found them bare.  Her shapely waist and smooth torso were also free from any markings, as was her bare mound and sloping hips.  Her thighs wore no brands other than a smattering of freckles that his eyes mapped as he walked the cool handle down her warm flesh.  At her ankles, Oliver lifted one foot, kissing her toes lightly as he studied the same.  A wayward laugh trickled from her lips as his affections made him realise she was faintly ticklish.</p>
<p>Looking up her body, Oliver could see her milky skin dappled in fine hair that caught the light, and he could smell the heady aroma drifting from her skin.  Perhaps it wasn’t arousal yet, but it tempted him closer all the same and Oliver lifted onto his knees and pressed his face gently between her legs.  He felt her body sway and for a moment he thought she might pull away, but she didn’t.  Instead, Felicity ran her nails slowly over Oliver's scalp, in a moment of intimacy that felt wonderful, albeit foreign to him.</p>
<p>His cock ached behind the unmalleable confines of his jean zipper, and unable to stop himself, Oliver sucked gently at the tip of her nether lips, drinking in her scent.  But, banishing his pleasure momentarily, Oliver knew he still needed to check the rest of her alabaster body.</p>
<p>With one final kiss on her smooth mound, Oliver leaned back on his heels and their eyes met.<br/>“Turn around bonita,” <em>beautiful,</em> Oliver hummed as he turned the butt of the knife in the air.<br/>Her toes curled into the knotted fibres of the Persian rug that spread out under his large bed, as Felicity turned slowly while Oliver grazed the side of her leg with the smooth chrome handle.</p>
<p>She glanced over the cusp of her shoulder, watching him as he studied her.  The sun had kissed her lower legs and just above her knees, warming them a faint, honey hue, before her skin paled to a soft cream.  As Oliver rose to his feet, his fingers skimmed up the inside of her thigh, which made her  involuntarily shiver.  Her rear was snowy and smooth, with knuckle dimples either side of her spine.  Her back was unblemished, but for a small mole on her left shoulder.</p>
<p>Oliver brushed his fingers up her neck, gathering her hair into a knot near her crown, and when he found her neck free form branding, he felt a weight lift off his soul.  He kissed her neck and her head lulled towards him.<br/>“You’ve never belonged to another,” he whispered as he nuzzled the edge of her throat.<br/>“No,” she replied, soft and breathy.<br/>Oliver skimmed the blade of the knife up her curved belly and gently over the crescent of her breast.  He left it, guarded, on her chest with just enough pressure that she would feel it, but it wouldn’t scratch her skin if she stayed perfectly still.</p>
<p>His teeth nipped at the cords of her neck as his hand rested around her throat, fingers feeling her pulse; quick but steady, <em>thump, thump, thump-thump.</em></p>
<p>“Has another man owned you?”<br/><em>thump, thump, thump-thump.</em><br/>“No.”<br/>Her pulse stayed steady and her skin stayed dry.  She didn’t quiver.</p>
<p>He lifted the knife and closed it where she could see it, before he threw it to the floor and enveloped her waist from behind.<br/>“Today I will claim you.  I will own you,” he promised as he kissed the ridgeline of her shoulder, towards the tip.<br/>“Yes,” she hummed, closing her eyes to the sensation of his lips dragging down her skin.<br/>“No other man will touch you,” he promised before his lips fell off her shoulder.<br/>He turned her slowly at the waist until her naked body pressed against his.  “If they do, I will kill them,” he swore, and she watched as his pupils grew wide; tiny pools of ebony overshadowing the calm blue.</p>
<p>She wasn’t sure his words required an answer, but an uneven smile lifted up the edge of her lips in response.  It seemed enough for him, and he captured her lips into a fierce and powerful kiss that carried her back towards the bed.  When her knees hit the edge of his mattress, Oliver lifted her by her hips and dropped her onto its pillowy embrace.</p>
<p>With her lying on her back, her arms above her head, and her legs dangling off the side of the bed, Oliver spread her legs open and gazed over her lemonade-pink folds before he ran his middle finger through the same.  She was faintly aroused, with a thin veil of wetness between her folds.  But, he wanted her soaked, dripping readily, before they begun, knowing she would need it.</p>
<p>Shadowing her body with his own, Oliver kissed her lips, warm and affectionate, and giving herself over to it Felicity arched her back and grazed her stiffening nipples against the fabric of his clothes.  His fingers combed through her hair that spilled across the mattress before he fisted it tightly making her gasp against his lips.  His tongue twisted around hers as he felt her skin grow warm below him.  Leaving her mouth, Oliver pressed his lips to the underside of her throat, feeling her pulse racing underneath her blushed skin.  Holding himself aloft with the hand he untangled from her locks, Oliver moved the other hand to her mound, cupping his hand around it, suffocating it with warmth.  Felicity moaned softly and her sex grew wet with anticipation.</p>
<p>But, Oliver kept his hand still as he focused his attentions to the slow descent of his lips down her body.  Gently he kissed, stroked, and played with her breasts and nipples, while her clit puffed out for attention in the stifling heat.  As his mouth moved down to her waistline, traversing the soft slopes of her warm belly, Felicity’s neck arched and her folds became slick with desire.  But, before Oliver reached her mound, he drove his lips back up towards her neck.</p>
<p>Writhing beneath him, Felicity instinctively sought out friction against her sex, but tortuously Oliver held her down as he traced the thin scarlet threads that now dripped down her throat.  With her back rested into the mattress, Felicity gripped the twisted bedspread under her body and as the muscles in her legs and back grew tense, Oliver teased each of her nipples with his tongue, alternating between slow and fast passes to keep her on the edge.</p>
<p>As the heat and her need became unbearable, Oliver passed a finger through her slit with an unevenly light stroke.  She was wet, and warm, and his thick digit had no resistance slipping back and forth through her folds.  Already feeling close, Felicity sobbed as his thumb grazed her clit with deft circles.</p>
<p>Remembering the sight of Adrian’s head between her legs, Oliver’s body grew hot with jealously and forgetting his slow and methodical tease, he dropped his lips to her swollen cunt and lashed her folds with his tongue, making the air swell with her ragged breaths.</p>
<p>Tasting her sweetness, Oliver groaned while his thumb lifted the hood of her clit and his lips sucked it inwards.  Felicity’s fevered breaths became rampant as Oliver religiously stimulated her clit and pushed his wet digit into her, working it in and out.  Her muscles clenched around his penetrating finger as his thrusts increased with vigour and he sunk a second finger between her tight, hot walls.</p>
<p>Pressure coiled tightly in Felicity's core, winding up unbearably tight, until her body couldn’t take it a moment longer.  She tunnelled her head back and surged her hips forward, pushing his fingers punishingly deep as she cried out in bliss and surrendered her body to the explosion of pleasure between her thighs.  Her walls pulsed hard around Oliver's fingers until her sweet juices spilled onto his hands, chin, and lips.</p>
<p>With her body sprawled on his bed, and her tight throat trying to catch her breath, Oliver stamped her sex with a kiss before he loosened his belt and shucked his pants.  Raising her head off the bed, Felicity watched as Oliver wrangled his thick shaft in his hands and gave it two quick tugs.  While tiny spasms still echoed down her body, he dragged her ass to the edge of the bed and tipped her hips upwards towards him.</p>
<p>After lining up his head with her entrance, Oliver gripped each side of Felicity's hips and drove his cock forward, plunging it unforgivingly deep into her.  She let out a muted cry while her body swelled with his engorged member, as it forged forward until she took him to the hilt without respite.</p>
<p>He rested there, getting Felicity use to his size as the last trickles of her orgasm pattered down his shaft.<br/>“I want you to hold my cock inside you tightly,” Oliver instructed, waiting for Felicity to bob her head before he began to let go of her hips.  Her legs tangled around his waist and her ankles locked them in place.  She could feel the pull on her core muscles as he looked down and smiled.</p>
<p>He rocked a little in place as he undid each button on his shirt with deliberate and agonizing lethargy, which made Felicity's svelte body tremble around his swollen and pulsing shaft.  Her tiny whimpers moved his fingers more deftly and he soon tore the shirt from his body and discarded it to the floor.</p>
<p>Now naked, Felicity could finally see the art work that decorated his body which she had only seen glimpses of before.  The sharp, curved lines on his upper chest were the artistic line-work wings of a dragon that was drawn in thick, black ink, and in an aesthetic similar to a tribal tattoo.  Its jagged lines stretched from the centre of Oliver’s chest where its mouth was open and baring teeth, up towards his neck, where the sharp thorns of its spine rose up towards his hairline, while its body twisted down his shoulder and sinewy arm.  She could also see that the word written in small script on the side of his neck read <em>“forgiveness”.</em> </p>
<p>He ghosted his hands down her slender sides and Felicity’s muscles throbbed trying to keep him inside her.  Just before her hips gave way, Oliver grabbed her firmly and nestled his body tightly between her legs.  The last echoes of her climax had gone, but her body was still wet and warm and tiny pulses in her walls reacted to each movement Oliver made inside her.  He caressed the dip of her hip bones with the calloused pad of each thumb until her lips parted with a soft, wanting sigh.</p>
<p>“I’m going to fuck you now,” he breathed and she looked up at his honesty with curious eyes.  His thumbs snuck closer to the tip of her nether lips.  “I’m going to fuck you hard and you’re going to feel it.”  As he spoke, he swivelled his hips and pushed a little deeper into her snug core.</p>
<p>Felicity gasped as her painted nails twisted in his bed sheets.<br/>He drew back an inch and watched her intently before he gently eased back in, meeting her pleasurable resistance with a low groan that emitted from the back of his throat.  Her skin was hot to his touch and her chest bore a delicious pink hue.</p>
<p>“Do you want that,” he asked, “do you want me to fuck you hard?”<br/>Felicity bit her lip and nodded her head, but it wasn’t enough for him.  “Say it,” he rasped, as he rode gently in and out of her.  “Say the words.”</p>
<p>Felicity lifted as high as her body would allow onto her palms.  Over her mound she could see his veiny cock buried inside her and her thin skin stretched around him.  She dug her nails into his forearms.  They were sharp and he hissed under his breath as she dragged them down to his wrists leaving red tracks on his skin.  Her hand overlapped his, and she squeezed them tighter, making the grip he had on her hips nearly suffocating.</p>
<p>“I want you to fuck me,” she answered calmly as she dipped a finger between her legs and stroked where their bodies met.  Her body writhed and her breath stalled as she pushed a finger into her tight hole and stroked his ropey cock.  The stretch was blinding severe, but she needed her act to be believable.  “I want it to be hard,” she said, tremored and breathless while she edged her finger out again.</p>
<p>Oliver yanked his cock back nearly to the tip before he slammed it back, causing Felicity to throw her head back with a strained cry.  He thrusted hard and fast, relentlessly, before he pulled her body down onto his shaft, driving his cock even deeper.  Her chest sobbed, her mouth open, but silent, and her eyes tipped up towards the ceiling, as the flush of pink down her chest darkened to crimson.</p>
<p>Her breath was a haze as her fingers worked up to a frenzy, rubbing and teasing her clit.  He knew her pleasure was fringed with pain, but she kept her eyes on him even as they started to glass over.  His thrusts were marauding, and her body ached and swelled with him while his breathing quickened and his balls tensed before a familiar heat spread deeply through his groin.</p>
<p>He threw himself back, tearing himself out from inside her and Felicity’s legs crashed limp to the floor.  But before she could mourn or question his abrupt exit, he was down on his knees sucking the life out of her swollen clit.  Felicity had no time to adjust to the different sensation and in a rush of pleasure she came apart for the second time, drowning his lips in her spend.</p>
<p>Breathless, Felicity sat up, but as soon as she did Oliver grabbed her under the arms and flipped her onto her stomach.  Her cheek felt hot and damp against the comforter as she shook through the short and fast orgasm that rippled down her lissom legs.</p>
<p>Then he was inside her again and every inch of his engorged cock slipped in and out of her, deep and frenetic.  He grabbed a fist full of her hair and Felicity titled her ass up and brought her legs together, so her sex tightened around him.  He thrust with the same savage depth, but all Felicity felt was pleasure coiling deep in her core and before she could reason on it, she came a third time, blanketing his cock.</p>
<p>He kissed her neck, bruising and hard, while the tips of his fingers still knotted in her hair, coiled around to her throat, feeling every short breath she took.</p>
<p>Oliver clenched his ass as he worked his wet shaft through her shuddering walls.  He kissed her neck, biting her at the slope and she reacted with a muffled scream which she buried in the comforter.  As he neared the brink of his own release, Oliver once again pulled out from her and she crumbled to the bed as she tried to catch her breath.</p>
<p>He paced the bed, watching as her chest rose and fell with sharp and ragged breaths.  His cock was aching and hard and he needed to clench his fists tightly to distract himself from the throb.  Weakly, Felicity sat up, her whole body was moist with sweat and strands of her damp hair were glued messily to her temples.</p>
<p>She saw his cock, full and hard, moving like a springboard as he paced a short line up and down the bed.</p>
<p>“Can I not please you?” she stammered, her breath barely returned and her lips chapped and dry.<br/>He turned his head towards her and his hand caught her chin.  With his fingers holding her face tightly, Oliver kissed her deeply, and as he drew back his teeth pulled on her lip.</p>
<p>“I could have come three times over,” he whispered, still holding her face close to his.  “But I’m not finished with you yet.”  She nodded in his hand as she reached out and touched his cock.  Of course she knew it would be hard, and slick, but she hadn’t expected it to be pulsing to the point she could feel it resonating through her fingertips.</p>
<p>He lifted her up, and while her legs swayed, she could stand upright on her own.  He moved her down to a corner post at the foot of the bed and pressed her chest against it.  She wrapped her arms and fingers around the pole before Oliver guided them above her head until the stretch lifted her onto her tip toes.</p>
<p>Two digits entered her from behind, stroking the pleasurable zone between her slit and her anus while he pinched the skin on her shoulder with tiny, superficial bites.  Her body swayed and her knuckles turned white as she held herself up as long as she could.  She felt his length brush against her folds and she mewled as his tip touched her bruised entrance.  Gently he raised one of her legs and rested it on the base of the frame before he thrust up into her.</p>
<p>Felicity threw her head back onto his shoulder as she cried out hotly in response to the brutal depth this position afforded his cock.</p>
<p>Frantically Oliver plunged his cock hard and fast into her while he continued to nip her tender skin.  The angle was perfect and his head glided deep into her core, while an undeniable pulsation  developed at the base of his shaft.  He kissed everywhere his lips could reach as her body began to collapse against him; her closed eyes, her damp cheeks, her scarlet neck…everywhere.</p>
<p>He edged out his pleasure, holding himself on the brink for as long as he could, before he leaned in close and nipped at her earlobe.  <br/>“I’m going to come deep in you, squeeze me tight and take it all,” he whispered and she sighed, as relief drew a smile on her exhausted face.<br/>He thrust as hard and as deep as her wilting body would take him before his jaw clenched and he jerked his hips.  She was tight, clenching deep with her last fragments of energy, and Oliver's cock erupted forcefully with thick ribbons of spend that filled her with warmth.</p>
<p>Easing his thrusts to a slow and methodical rhythm, Oliver milked the last of his climax inside her without spilling a drop.  She was weak, and when he pulled out Oliver caught her wilted body in his arms.  He lifted her carefully and lay her on his bed, before he stroked his fingers over the slope of her hip.</p>
<p>She peeked up at him with lidded eyes, but no words were exchanged and when he turned, she saw another tattoo on his back.  It consumed most of it; black lines with sharpened points framed to look like angel wings, perhaps those of fallen ones; dark, tattered, brutal. </p>
<p>Demons once had wings too.</p>
<p>Felicity curled into herself, her body aching and her breath shallow, as Oliver disappeared into the bathroom.  She heard the faucet start and it sounded like he was filling the bath as she dozed in exhaustion.  It seemed like only seconds later that he was standing beside her, fully dressed and holding out his hand.  </p>
<p>She took it, but seeing her body was still weak, Oliver recognised that she would need more than his hand.  He lifted her easily and while she might have once fought against the idea, she simply nestled her cheek against his chest and let him carry her across the room and into the bathroom.</p>
<p>He had run a bath that was scented like coconuts and the cloudy water alluded to the oil being poured in there.  She climbed into the warm bath and sighed as she felt it embrace her swollen sex.</p>
<p>“Now you’re mine,” he said as he softly brushed back her hair. Timid and in contrast to the meaning behind the words spoken.</p>
<p>He left her in the bath and gathered up her torn clothes.  After which, Oliver left the bedroom and locked the door behind him before he walked stiffly down the stairs.</p>
<p>“Where is she?” Ángel growled as he met Oliver at the bottom of the stairs.<br/>Oliver walked past him and found who he was looking for in the den, still smoking that fine Cuban cigar he had nursed for over an hour.  Javier looked up as Máxi smiled from a leather recliner nearby.</p>
<p>“Give me the girl,” Ángel roared as he followed Oliver into the same room.<br/>Oliver continued to ignore the man’s ranting as he handed the torn clothes to Javier.  “I’d like to claim her as mine,” Oliver said calmly.<br/>Javier chuckled as he looked through the shredded clothes, paying close attention to the small panties.  “Did you fuck her?” he asked coyly.<br/>Oliver glanced at his wristwatch and smiled.  “I’ve been fucking that pretty whore for the last hour, she couldn’t even walk when I left.”</p>
<p>Máxi stood up with a drink in his hand and a boyish smirk on his face.<br/>“Oliver’s never claimed a girl, I think he should get this one,” Máxi enthused, and Javier nodded in agreement.<br/>“If you’ve marked her then she’s yours,” he cheered before he offered Oliver a cigar from his box.<br/>“I had a buyer for her,” Ángel spat bitterly.<br/>But no one cared to listen.</p>
<p>“I’ll send Gloria to speak with her later,” Javier remarked as he lit the end of Oliver’s cigar.  “In the meantime, tell me, is American pussy any better?” the older man laughed.<br/>Oliver took a long drag on his cigar before he blew it out away from his boss.  “Different,” he simply stated.</p>
<p>The answer amused the boss and he slapped his hand onto Oliver’s shoulder.<br/>“A word with you,” he added quietly before he led Oliver outside and away from prying ears.  “Is it a problem that she is here?” he asked coldly.<br/>Oliver shook his head.  “A deal was reached,” he lied.<br/>Studying his face, the older man took three short and sharp puffs on his cigar before he nodded.  “You have taken care of my Máximo and proved your loyalty in bodies and money,” he paused briefly, a small nod in appreciation.  “But if she is a problem for the family?”<br/>Oliver’s back grew rigid and his lips stiffened.  “I’ll kill her myself,” he uttered ominously.<br/>Javier raised his glass of pale gold liquor.  “To Blood.”<br/>“To Blood,” Oliver pledged.<br/>The Blood Cártel above all others.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. || hide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>WOWSERS the response to this fic was so not expected and I am humbly blown away, over 22k hits in 4 chapters?! Just, wow, thank you ❤</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>Felicity's legs were still a little shaky when she got out of the bath nearly 10 minutes later.  Her skin was luxuriously soft to the touch and had a delicate scent imbued on it, warm, decadent, and faintly coconut.</p><p>She wrapped a towel which Oliver had left out for her around her body.  It was large, easily wrapping around her chest nearly twice and hanging down around her knees, and it was fluffy and soft, perhaps one that wouldn't have been out of place at a fancy resort.  That absurdly large and soft towel seemed in austere contradiction to what Felicity knew to be true; that the house she was standing in was a den of vice and depravity, where the land it was built on was stained in blood and the bricks it was built with were borne from the suffering of others.  It was nothing to be admired, and nor did it warrant luxuriously large towels.</p><p>Felicity knew that she was standing amidst the epitome of the 'deadly sins'; greed, wrath, pride, envy, lust, and gluttony... perhaps it was only sloth that would be found wanting.  After all, their ‘work’ was debased and corrupt, but judging by its insidious reach, they could hardly be called lazy.</p><p>With those thoughts pummelling her mind, Felicity stood silent and stoic in front of the bathroom mirror, looking intently at the foggy edges of her reflection.  It must have been insanity that had brought her here, to this place.  But, Alena had been like a sister, family in the absence of any real family that either of them had, and if giving her body to a man for a few nights helped her find Alena, then so be it.  </p><p>Still, she continued to scrutinize her reflection until her eyes fixated on the scarlet mark by her shoulder, the same one that Oliver’s mouth had expertly branded her with.  She was certain that it would be visible for at least a few days, and as she circled it slowly she noticed two other similar marks on her other shoulder.  They were less vibrant against her skin, but they were ones she had no recollection of.  Perhaps for a few moments, Felicity had lost herself in it.  <em>Was that so bad?</em></p><p>She checked her body inch by inch until she discovered a few small, superficial, bruises near her hips, and a tiny twang of pain when she brushed her fingers over the top of them.</p><p>She bit her lip as she focused on the face of the woman staring back; it would go unsaid but perhaps there was a small part of her drawn to Oliver, a small part of her that had enjoyed his hands, his lips, him... <em>yes,</em> she had enjoyed him.  <em>Did this make her pilgrimage to find the truth a farce?</em>  Felicity asked herself that question with narrowed eyes, <em>No,</em> she decided.  </p><p>Tired of her own scrutiny, Felicity left the bathroom, only to realise that her clothes were gone.  Not that they would have been any good, seeing how Oliver had cut through them with almost surgical precision.  A cold shiver ran down her spine when she realised just how skilled he had been with that blade... and the likely reasons for his adept skills.</p><p>She took a short, sharp inhale.  <em>What was she doing?</em></p><p>On the bed, still with its twisted sheets, Oliver had laid out a satin robe, in a colour that sat between ivory and rose.  With the tips of her hair dark with water, Felicity brushed the towel through them before she slipped on the robe and wrapped the tie tightly around her waist.</p><p>There was still the problem of her things.  Her bag had been confiscated the moment she had stepped through the gates by a suspicious guy the size of a professional wrestler.  She was confident that her cellphone and tablet would appear innocuous to an untrained eye, but she simply couldn't wait around twiddling her thumbs in the meantime.  She was there to find Alena, and then get them both out as quickly as she could.</p><p>Tacitly her eyes wandered around the room, familiarising herself with the parts of it which she hadn't taken in before.  There were no photos on the walls or beside the bed as one might usually expect, and there were only three things hanging on the beige walls; a mirror, a tapestry that appeared to be arrows with different heads laid in a line, and an oil painting on canvas.</p><p>The painting was nothing to speak of, and from a distance it appeared to simply be a thick block of mottled blue paint below another block of patchy white and grey; it was hardly an intricate painting.</p><p>But, drawn to it, Felicity walked towards it until the blue became a palette of blues with shadows and highlights, lifting and shaping a murky world that had depth and life... almost like it was breathing.  Above it wasn't just grey, void of any shape or colour, but rather brushes of white danced with the muted greys, both embracing and fighting at the same time.  Two fractions trying to blend, blurring at the edges.  But, both together trying to touch the blue.</p><p>To some it might have remained two colours sharing the one canvas, but to Felicity it looked like the ocean taunting the sky.</p><p>Their paths crossing momentarily as the ocean is trained by the tides and the clouds are pushed by the breeze.</p><p>But for just a moment, they both lived.  There.  Together.</p><p>She pulled herself back from the painting and looked down to what sat in front of it; a redwood desk.  It felt like a strange place for it, sitting near the foot of the bed, against a wall without a view.  But inexplicably it also felt right.  There was a laptop sitting closed on top of it and Felicity glanced around briefly before she pulled out the leather chair and sat down.</p><p>But, as soon as she had, she heard a small knock on the door.  Felicity looked up, watching the door handle carefully, but it never moved.  Another knock had Felicity on her feet.</p><p>“Megan, Oliver sent us,” a female voice whispered through the crack in the door.<br/>
Felicity walked tentatively over to the door and noted it was locked from the inside.<br/>
“We won't hurt you,” the same voice remarked.<br/>
Felicity unlocked the door and opened it a few inches to five stunning young women with gentle smiles.</p><p>“Can we come in?” The same one who had been talking asked.  She was tall and slender with long and beautifully curly hair in honey and tawny tones.  Her skin was a warm and flawless olive.  Her eyes a rich brown and her lips full and painted a soft rose.</p><p>Another woman behind her appeared anxious and looked over her shoulders a few times as though she was worried that they might be found there.  Felicity opened the door and they scuttled into the room, and as they moved towards the bed, Felicity followed.</p><p>“I'm Gabriela, Matías' girlfriend,” she explained as she offered Felicity a gentle smile.<br/>
“Oliver sent you?” Felicity enquired.<br/>
“Us girlfriends stick together,” another of the girls with caramel skin and ebony hair answered before she opened the bottom cupboard of Oliver's bedside table.  It was a small hidden fridge where she found a water bottle which she opened and handed to Felicity.</p><p>She was about the same height as Felicity, with a sweeping waist and wonderfully full hips.  Her eyes were shades of green and brown and lined with dark makeup.  She wore a black dress off her shoulders and a tied colourful headband. “I'm Carmen, one of Ángel's girlfriends.  Adriana is his other girl,” she commented as she nodded towards another girl.</p><p>It was the anxious one who had been looking over her shoulder.  She was thin and her dark hair hung loose around her face.  She was attractive with honey skin and deep brown eyes, but her red lips were expressionless and her cheeks looked sunken.  She barely acknowledged her own name, taken instead with the same painting Felicity had been drawn to.</p><p>A fourth girl was blonde and petite with wide blue eyes and pale skin.  Her full, pouty lips wore a slightly surprised look and she reminded Felicity of a doe in headlights.  “This is Annika, she's Russian and doesn't say much.  She's Matías' little doll,” Gabriela explained.  Annika nodded to her name before she plucked excitedly at Felicity's hair, a few tones lighter than her own.<br/>
“Like me,” she smiled brightly as her other hand touched Felicity's cheek.<br/>
“She's not used to seeing white girls,” Carmen laughed.</p><p>The fifth girl was curvy and younger than the rest.  Her hair was dark but with warm, lighter tones that caught the sun as she walked.  Her cheeks were bronzed and her lips a soft blush.<br/>
“I'm Rosa, not a girlfriend yet, but Máxi invited me to stay,” she explained.</p><p>Five girls.<br/>
Five girlfriends.</p><p>Not wives.</p><p>“Is this all of you?” Felicity asked curiously.<br/>
“Matías has a wife who lives away from here, and Nikolai's wife is sometimes wandering around, but she doesn't talk to us,” Gabriela answered.<br/>
“The others are just girls invited to come and go, only girlfriends stay over,” Carmen added.<br/>
To Felicity, Carmen and Gabriela appeared to be the ones who spoke for the group and it was her guess that they had been around the longest.<br/>
“And of course there is Gloria,” Carmen added with tight lips.<br/>
Felicity knew who that was and simply nodded.</p><p>Gabriela slipped her handbag off her shoulder and set it down on the bed.  “Did he hurt you? Do you need ice or anything?”</p><p>It was striking how calmly her question was asked, without any dramatics, as though she was asking something as simple as what Felicity had eaten for breakfast.</p><p>“No, I'm fine,” Felicity answered with her arms loosely hugging her waist.<br/>
All of the girls seemed surprised.<br/>
Carmen touched Felicity's shoulder and smiled kindly. “ You don't have to be embarrassed,” she soothed, her accent rich and engaging.<br/>
“Carmen is right, we've all been there,” Gabriela started, “Matías branded me with his ring and added his initials later.”  As she spoke she slipped the shoulder of her white blouse down her arm and exposed a burned branding on the front of her shoulder.  Two black script letters sat tattooed underneath it; M.A.<br/>
“Ángel strangled me too tightly our first time that I passed out,” Carmen added with a slight shrug.  <br/>
“He put his cigarettes out on my thighs,” Adriana whispered.  Her shoulders sunk down and she hugged herself tightly as she spoke.<br/>
“So it's okay if he hurt you, we'll all understand,” Gabriela assured her.</p><p>Felicity kept her shock hidden behind a soft smile.  “He didn't hurt me,” she breathed.<br/>
Carmen and Gabriela shared a look before Carmen spoke.  “We always thought Oliver was a good one.”<br/>
“Comparatively,” Gabriela added, with a wispy, short-lived laugh.<br/>
“Has he hurt any of his other girlfriends?” Felicity asked timidly.  <em>Did she want the answer?</em><br/>
“Oliver's never had another girlfriend,” Adriana answered.  Her voice was so quiet, that Felicity wasn't even sure she heard her right until Carmen echoed the same statement.<br/>
“You're his first.”</p><p>“So now what happens?” Felicity enquired before she took a much needed drink of water; she hadn't even realised how parched her throat was.<br/>
“Gloria will be in soon to check on you,” Gabriela explained.  Her voice hushed, “she's a bitch but you have to do what she says.”<br/>
“Or?”<br/>
Felicity watched both Adriana and Annika stiffen and close their arms tighter around their waists.</p><p>“I saw her throw acid in the face of one of Ángel's girlfriends a few years back and it’s not the worst thing she's done,” Carmen spoke under her breath, it was the first time she had spoken so quietly.  It was unmistakable; the girls were afraid of Gloria, and perhaps, Felicity considered, they had reason to be.<br/>
“Rumour has it she had wife number four killed to become wife number five.  She had married Javier for the second time before Karli's body was even cold,” Carmen explained, still speaking in a hushed tone.  “Karli was one of us, Gloria hated her for that.”<br/>
“Just do, she ask,” Annika muttered in broken English as she looked, frightened, towards the door.</p><p>It had been as though Annika knew something the others didn't as no sooner had she spoken, there was a sharp knock on the door.<br/>
“Do what she says,” Gabriela spoke kindly as she gave Felicity's shoulder a small squeeze.</p><p>When Carmen opened the door, in walked a thin woman with sharp features and red hair that matched the same striking colour across her lips.  She wore a tightly fitted dress in cobalt blue, a tailored fit that would have blended in along Wall Street.  She also wore a snarl like an accessory along with a dripping of gold necklaces and extravagant rings on almost every finger.</p><p>“Get out,” she said coldly and the five girls moved quickly towards the door.  Only Carmen offered Felicity a small wave before she closed the door behind her.</p><p>“So, you're the new whore?” Gloria said dryly as her black-lined eyes walked up and down Felicity without trying to hide her distain.<br/>
Felicity bit back any one of the terse replies that were floating around her head.  She couldn't be that foolish; Gloria was married to Javier and was Ángel's mother.  That alone demanded Felicity's tight lipped response.<br/>
“Yes,” she answered softly.  There was no sense in making Gloria think of her as anything more than a silly, fragile little bug.  She didn't need the matriarch's scrutiny.<br/>
“Can't imagine what he sees in you.  You're just like the rest of them.”<br/>
Felicity bowed her head and counted her breaths as she took them, simply to give her mind focus.</p><p>Gloria strutted across the room to where Felicity still sat and jabbed her sharp nail, filed to a point, up under Felicity's chin to raise her face.</p><p>“I suppose you are attractive in a basic sort of way,” she remarked brusquely.  Felicity assumed that was as a close to a compliment as she was ever going to get.<br/>
“Thank you,” Felicity breathed.<br/>
Age might have carved a few wrinkles around her tight lips and the edges of her eyes, but even through her venomous demeanour, Felicity could tell Gloria had been quite attractive and in many ways, she still was.  </p><p>“Stand up,” the matriarch said with a snap of her fingers.<br/>
Felicity obliged and stood to her flat feet.  With her heels, Gloria stood about a foot taller.<br/>
“Did he check you?”<br/>
Felicity nodded, “he did.”<br/>
“And?” she asked, and a hiss twisted the word.<br/>
“I haven't belonged to any other man.”</p><p>Felicity couldn't tell if Gloria believed her, or whether she would demand to see the proof herself, and for a few harrowing moments Felicity stood silently under Gloria's hot glare.   But then Gloria simply looked away and dipped her hand into her bag, retrieving something that didn't require an introduction; a pregnancy test.</p><p>“Take it, we won't be looking after some other man's bastard child.”  Her words were callous, her tone cruel.<br/>
Felicity would have argued until she was blue in the face at such an invasion of privacy, but Megan had no other choice.  She took the test and peed on the stick with the bathroom door open.  </p><p>When she returned she sat the test on the nightstand and waited for Gloria's next intrusive order.<br/>
“Did he fuck you?”<br/>
“Yes,” Felicity answered without pause.<br/>
“Did he come inside you?”<br/>
“Yes, the once.”</p><p>Gloria pulled out a blister pack with space for only two tablets, and only one remained.  Felicity held out her hand and then Gloria dropped the pill into the palm of her hand.  It was white and small, circular.</p><p>“Take it,” Gloria ordered.<br/>
Felicity couldn't help herself.  “What is it?”<br/>
“Your fucking multi vitamins,” Gloria raged, “just take it.”<br/>
But Felicity didn't move, from bravery or stupidity she wasn't sure.</p><p>Gloria glared down at her.  “It's the morning after pill,” she smirked. <br/>
“I have the implant,” Felicity retorted.<br/>
But Gloria pushed the water bottle into Felicity's chest.  “Take it.”<br/>
Reluctantly she did, unsure she had much other choice.<br/>
“Your implant will be removed and you'll get the injection under my watch.”</p><p>There was a chance that if something happened to Felicity the small implant in her arm could be used to identify her.  The fact the Cártel would remove it was both clever and considerably unsettling.</p><p>“Of course,” Felicity remarked.<br/>
“Girlfriends don't get pregnant,” Gloria warned as she stepped closer.  “You're just here to suck his cock and keep your cunt wet, understand?”<br/>
Felicity nodded.</p><p>“You'll stay in this room for a week or accompany Oliver only when he asks.  He'll fuck you as often as he wants and you'll take it every fucking time, like a good little whore.”<br/>
Felicity bit her lip firmly.<br/>
“Then when he's done with you, you'll stay or you'll <em>disappear.”</em></p><p>The last word she spoke twisted her lips into a smile.<br/>
She looked down at Felicity's robe and laughed.  “He'll dress you as he sees fit or just keep you like that.”</p><p>Gloria walked over to the nightstand and checked the test Felicity had taken earlier; it was negative.<br/>
“At least you're smarter than some of the others they drag through here,” she commented as she threw the test in the trash.  “You don't go anywhere without Oliver, understood?”<br/>
Felicity nodded.  “Yes, thank you.”<br/>
Gloria rolled her eyes and muttered something crass under her breath before she left, slamming the door behind her.</p><p>Felicity let out a shaky whimper she had been holding on to before she fell onto the bed.</p><p>
  <em>What the fuck had she gotten herself into?</em>
</p><p>Once she was alone again in Oliver's bedroom, Felicity sat down in front of his laptop and opened it.  She wasn't surprised to find it password protected, but she was surprised to find the Trojan programme running behind the scenes that rendered her usual tricks useless. Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't crack it, but it did mean she needed her specialised digital toolbox that was currently sitting somewhere in the compound.  Her only other option would be impossible to mask and anyone with reasonably good eyesight would be able to tell the laptop had been tampered with.</p><p>Right now, unsure what...if anything... she might find, Felicity couldn't risk that.</p><p>Still, the fact Oliver had what was essentially the opposite to spyware on an innocuous looking laptop did pique Felicity's interest.  There was something he was trying to hide; but what and from whom?</p><p>Both questions that would have to wait as yet another knock on the door required her attention.</p><p>“Who is it?” Felicity asked through the wood.<br/>
“Rosa, Máxi's,” she paused unsure what to title herself.  It became apparent to Felicity that there was a level of hierarchy not only in the lieutenants, but also between their consorts; wives, girlfriends, stay overs, and ‘quick fucks'.  It was archaic and oddly ritualistic, but not particularly surprising.</p><p>Felicity unlocked the door and let Rosa in, along with the dozen bags she held between both hands.<br/>
“Shopping?” Felicity remarked with a soft laugh.<br/>
“I wish,” she hummed as she set the bags down on the bed and Felicity closed the door.  “They're for you, Oliver asked me to bring them up.”<br/>
Felicity glanced at the bags and noted how attractively they were wrapped and filled, they didn't appear to be just your run of the mill chain store bags, so what was in them probably wasn't either.</p><p>“I haven’t been around much, just a couple of weeks on and off, and I’ve never seen anyone of the other's spoil a girlfriend like this,” Rosa swooned.<br/>
It struck Felicity that the younger girl romanticized this life, when it was anything but.<br/>
“Where are you from?” Felicity asked, curious about what made <em>this</em> life appealing to the stunning brunette.<br/>
“Originally Colombia, but I left home when I was fourteen,” Rosa chatted as she peeked into some of the bags.<br/>
“And you're how old now?”<br/>
She raised her enchantingly deep eyes and smiled, “Eighteen.”<br/>
Felicity swallowed the nauseating lump in her throat, Rosa was so young.  Too young.<br/>
“And Máxi, you like him?” <br/>
Rosa grazed her teeth across her lips as she sighed contentedly.  “He's really nice to me and I know he’d look after me.”<br/>
There was something so innocent about how the young girl spoke, but there was also something deeply and troublingly naive about it.  Máxi, like all the others, was part of a ruthless Cártel who cared little for the people they hurt.  He was the youngest son of it's boss, a violent man with a legacy steeped in blood and misery.  His half brothers branded and burned their girlfriends like cattle or worse, because of the sick satisfaction it brought them.</p><p>This world was dark, brutal, and nothing in it could be loved.</p><p>“Aren’t your parents worried about you, or your family?” Felicity enquired quietly.<br/>
She watched Rosa’s demeanour shift from starry-eyed-innocent to timid and withdrawn.  “They didn’t care when my brother and me ran away four years ago, I don’t think they would care now.”<br/>
“You have a brother?”<br/>
Rosa shook her head.  “He got shot about a year ago,” she brushed a tear roughly from her cheek.  “It's just me now.  I have a younger sister at home, she’s twelve. I’m hoping to set us up here so I can send for her you know?”<br/>
She kicked her nude pump idly into the ground.  “How about you, any family?”<br/>
Felicity shook her head, before she caught herself.  <em>Megan</em> did.  “Just my parents, but I don't really get on with them.”<br/>
“Well,” Rosa said as she tried to perk herself up.  “You’re lucky with Oliver.”<br/>
Felicity smiled arbitrarily.<br/>
“Máxi sent me to sleep with Oliver this morning,” Rosa chatted casually.<br/>
“Oh,” Felicity remarked with a pop of her lips, but Rosa brushed off her concern with a laugh.<br/>
“But we didn't, turns out he already had someone on his mind,” she said smoothly, like two high school girls blushing about the boy that liked them.  It was sweet and caring, both things that were so at odds with what surrounded them.<br/>
“You must be special, that’s so sweet,” she continued to gush.<br/>
Felicity absently brushed her fingertips down her bruised hips, the slight pain had subsided and while Oliver hadn’t done anything she hadn’t consented to, nothing about this environment said sweet.<br/>
“I’m sure he’ll keep you.  No one buys all of this just to have her for a week,” Rosa said cheerily, despite the fact Felicity had said very little.</p><p>“What happens if they don’t?” Felicity wondered aloud.  She hadn’t considered that it might take her longer than a week to find Alena, but it could.<br/>
“Ángel had another girl here a few weeks back, one day she just wasn’t around,” Rosa commented with a cautious shrug.  “But Oliver will keep you, I just know it.”</p><p>She looked at her watch and smiled brightly.  “He said to tell you he’d be back at 6pm, and that’s an hour from now.  Máxi was with him, so I’m going to go get ready for him to come home.”<br/>
She picked up a pink bag that had clearly come from a lingerie store.  “Maybe you get ready for Oliver too,” she remarked with a coquettish wink. </p><p>Felicity played along with a soft, pouty laugh.  “He bought it, he can rip it,” she spoke before she shrugged suggestively.<br/>
“I can see why he likes you, maybe one day you’ll become a wife,” Rosa sighed before she headed towards the door, swaying happily in her heels. “See you in the morning,” she added at the door.<br/>
Felicity waved to her before the young girl left.</p><p>The smile vanished from Felicity’s lips as she carried the bag over to the door to lock it.</p><p>There were far more bags on the bed than a week's stay would require, but if Felicity couldn’t find Alena in the next week, maybe she need to ensure that Oliver kept her around; whatever that required. </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>If you want the imagery of the characters please see the Twitter link below</strong>
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  <a href="https://twitter.com/Someonesaidcake/status/1223739136286134272?s=19"> <strong>|| character bios ||</strong> </a>
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  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. || drive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Without lights on in the bedroom, the room around Felicity filled with the brilliant and warm shades of the orange-imbued sky at sunset.  From Oliver’s window it looked like a painting in striking water colours, where the pinks kissed the yellows, and the autumn-oranges cast a vibrancy across what was left of the blue sky.</p><p>It was impossible not to look at it and see beauty, but there was also something violent in its colours; perhaps the pinks were fighting the yellows while the oranges shadowed the pristine blue, touching every part of it until the sky no longer recognised itself.  </p><p>Felicity hugged the robe she wore tighter around her frame, stealing herself to be who she needed to be.  Alena was alive; she couldn’t lose that hope.  And Felicity would find her.</p><p>The door unlocked and opened and Felicity took one last look at the battlefield across the sky; <em>perhaps love and hate were the same thing depending on whose eyes you saw it through.</em></p><p>When she turned, she saw Oliver, dressed in dark pants and a charcoal sweater.  His brow was heavy and his face looked tired, but when he saw her, his full lips grew a small smile at one corner.</p><p>Wordlessly, Felicity walked towards him, her body lifted in expensive black stilettos and her hips swaying with a feline saunter.  She took his face gently and for a moment she thought she had felt him quiver beneath her palms.  But, without lingering, she tipped her head up and kissed him softly, with her eyes closed and a tear forming behind each lid.</p><p>
  <em>For Alena.</em>
</p><p>She drew back and noted that while his lips stayed parted and his eyes lay closed; he look almost vulnerable.</p><p>“I missed you,” she spoke quietly.  Her breath shaky, and her throat tight.<br/>With her hands trembling she undid the robe and let it fall like a puddle around her feet.  She touched her breast and then her waist, pulling Oliver’s eyes from one to the other.<br/>“Do you like it?” she asked as she turned a slow circle while Oliver’s eyes followed.<br/>She was dressed in lingerie from one of the bags; a gauzy black lace bra that left very little to the imagination, and a matching pair of panties that covered even less.  Around her waist she wore a garter in the same sheer fabric, but with boning sewn into the seams and ribbon ties which fastened to the tops of her satin pantyhose, also black.</p><p>Oliver stopped her at the waist with a hand either side of her body and her back facing him.  She could feel his searing breath beating down her neck as her head lolled to one side.  She hadn’t realised it until her eyes fluttered open, that he had stopped her when she was facing the long mirror on his wall.</p><p>She could see the way his large hands enveloped her waist, his fingers almost touching at her navel, and she could feel the heated gaze that matched his slow and blistering breath. </p><p>“You look beautiful,” he whispered, his broiling exhale licking at her skin.<br/>Her nude lips smiled faintly at him, before Oliver turned her slowly until they stood facing each other.  But her head was bowed and her brow was anxious.</p><p>“Do you like the rest of your clothes?” he asked, hoping to draw her eyes upwards.<br/>But they stayed low while she answered him with a small nod.  “They were all very beautiful, you spoil me,” she whispered as she stared at the tattoos on his hand, wondering how much pain each stroke had inflicted and what the numbers might mean.</p><p>His thumbs grazed languid lines down her smooth stomach, hoping, perhaps, to coax a smile onto her lips – if only for a second.  “I have quite the penchant for black, don’t I?” he remarked with a smile in his tone.<br/>It still wasn’t enough to lift her eyes to his.  “I like black too,” she whispered and watched his thumbs glide over her stomach, lifting the fine, near-invisible hairs, in their wake.<br/>“Megan,” he whispered as he lifted one hand and brushed it across her cheek.  Finally he saw her eyes, just as mesmerizingly blue as he knew them to be, but they were also glassy and troubled.</p><p>“Where would you like me?” she asked, holding his gaze for only a moment before her eyes slipped to the floor again.<br/>He lifted her chin a second time, but he kept his finger there to hold her gaze.  “Do you want me to fuck you?” he asked, the crassness of his words aside, his tone was soft; <em>gentle.</em> <br/>“Of course,” she answered with a placating smile.  But her eyes couldn’t hide the truth from his scrutiny.<br/>He brushed his other hand between her legs and pressed into her sex, making Felicity whimper.<br/>“You’re sore,” he remarked.<br/>Her practiced smile stayed.  “It won’t matter.”<br/>His hands moved to her face, cupping both of her cheeks as a single tear slid down one.<br/>“Do you want me to fuck you?” he started as she bit her lip, steeling herself to answer him.  “Tell me the truth.”<br/>“No,” she breathed, thin and brittle.<br/>He wiped her tear away with his thumb.  “Then I won’t.  I told you, I won’t do anything to you that you don’t want.”<br/>“But the others do, don’t they?”<br/>He stared at her deeply, saying nothing for a few seconds, that to Felicity felt like hours.<br/>“I’m not them,” he finally said, his tone soft and soothing.</p><p>He kissed her forehead before he spoke again.  “Get dressed,” he sighed as his lips lifted off her skin.<br/>“You don’t like what I’m wearing?” she asked wearily.<br/>Oliver laughed breathily before he touched the lacy edges of her bra, delicately plucking at them.  “I do, very much so, but I’m a very jealous man who is tired and doesn’t want to fight anyone tonight if I took you to dinner only wearing that.”<br/>“We’re leaving the room?” she asked, surprised.<br/>“We’re leaving the compound.  Do you like Italian?”  </p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Felicity chose a black dress that hugged her curves tightly with strips of ‘bandaged’ fabric, and a zip which Oliver languidly guided up her spine, before marking the end with a kiss.  She could see the scarlet mark his mouth had left on her skin and Oliver himself seemed intrigued with the same, touching its edges with a slow sweep.</p><p>Looking at his curious expression, Felicity felt only confusion.  She should have been afraid of him, both because of what he had done before and what he could do if he chose to; and yet – she wasn’t.</p><p>He escorted her off the compound without anyone saying a word and there was already a car waiting in the driveway for them, an Audi R8 Spyder in matte black to be precise.  He opened the passenger side door and Felicity slipped into the cool leather seat, enjoying the way it chilled her legs on what was a rather balmy night.</p><p>Oliver got in the driver’s seat and wrapped his long fingers around the hardened-leather steering wheel, before he took off through the open gate, spitting gravel from the driveway like bullets behind them.</p><p>The roads weaved and dipped, but Oliver drove them at speed effortlessly and Felicity found herself unguarded as she watched the scenery fly by.  The car sat low to the ground, and the engine hummed and growled with the raw power which sat under the hood, but the drive was smooth and the corners precise.   They sped past a waiting Police car, but Oliver didn’t flinch and the car never followed; the inference was clear, the Cártel owned them too.</p><p>Their drive took them along the scenic coastline as the last remnants of daylight disappeared into the abyss of the night.  But the air was still warm and with her heart racing, Felicity could feel the beads of sweat forming along the crevice of her shoulders.</p><p>She wasn’t the only one to notice the glistening against her skin, Oliver did too.  Darting his eyes between the roads he knew well and the curves sitting beside him, he mapped the dampness on her skin.  Megan hadn’t been here long, at least not long enough to acclimatize herself to the warm and humid nights, she must have come from somewhere with a milder, temperate climate, which would also account for her porcelain skin.</p><p>If he had to guess he would say somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, although her dialect wore signs of a Western accent, perhaps lost over time.</p><p>The drive ended near the tip of one of the many jagged bays that sculptured the coast and Oliver pulled into a valet bay out the front of an Italian restaurant.  He stepped from the car and handed a nervous looking valet the keys before he walked around to Felicity’s side and opened the door.</p><p>He offered his hand and she took it, sliding one leg out and then the other.  Her back was against the car as his body shadowed hers without a word passing between them.  Ever so slowly, Oliver skimmed one finger along her collarbone, sweeping up the tiny freckles of perspiration dappled there.</p><p>He leaned in and his bristled jaw grazed her cheek.  “Was it my driving or the weather?” he whispered before he sealed his words with a kiss near her neck.<br/>“Both,” Felicity sighed before she took his hand and guided it between her thighs.<br/>He growled hungrily against her neck as his fingertips felt the wetness of her thighs, lifting her skirt until it sat barely an inch from exposing the lace panties she was wearing.</p><p>He pinned her wrists to the side of the car and pressed his growing erection into her body.  “A weaker man would fuck you right here and now,” he rasped as she rucked into him, making his last words float out with a sigh.<br/>“And what are you?” Felicity hummed.<br/>When Oliver stepped back he was smiling, worldly, almost dark and demanding, but thoroughly entangling.<br/>“Not weak,” he mouthed and the smile moved into the dark pools of his eyes.</p><p>He took her hand and led her towards the door, pausing for it to be opened for them both.  They were seated immediately and Oliver never gave his name to a single person.  Their table was in a dim corner, set back from the rest of the restaurant with a view that overlooked the nearby harbour.  Oliver pulled the chair out for Felicity and didn’t miss a chance to ride his fingers up her bare arm before they fell off at her shoulder.</p><p>It didn’t go unnoticed that a hush had fallen over the restaurant when they walked in, as if they <em>knew</em> exactly who Oliver was.  It was as though he lived like a celebrity, not hidden from the world like a fugitive from the law should be.</p><p>Champagne was soon poured into a flute in front of Felicity without Oliver having to ask, and the bottle of the exquisite <em>Nicolas Feuillatte</em> was left in an ice bucket beside the table.  Oliver waved away the menu for himself.<br/>“The usual,” he said dryly to the waiter who kept his eyes raised.<br/>“And for the lady?” the waiter asked.<br/>Felicity closed the menu before she had read it.  She kept her eyes on Oliver as she handed back the black folder.  “His usual,” she purred.<br/>“Very well miss.”</p><p>Once they were alone, Oliver leaned across the table with a smirk lifting his mouth higher at one end.<br/>“What if you don’t like the usual?” he asked.<br/>She took a sip from her glass while she watched him over the rim.<br/>“I hope you have a big appetite.”</p><p>“I realise I don’t even know your last name Megan,” Oliver remarked as a crystal tumbler of what looked to be aged bourbon over ice was set down in front of him.<br/>“You don’t drink champagne?” Felicity flirted.<br/>“Not from a glass,” he replied coyly.  “Your last name Megan,” he added, the question left unanswered.<br/>“Jones,” Felicity offered, lowering her eyes.</p><p>Megan Jones had been the identity she had created for herself.  The lie was necessary, yet in that instant, Felicity hadn’t wanted to tell it.  </p><p>Thankfully, their dinner arrived fresh and hot from the kitchen in that moment, two plates of <em>the usual</em>.  The usual being a simple spaghetti and meatballs.  She had expected something far more refined, although she wasn’t sure why.  But, instead, Oliver’s order was homely, comfortable, simple.</p><p>Afraid he could see the lie on her face, Felicity glanced out the window towards the marina in the distance, before she sighed softly.<br/>“You sail Megan?” Oliver queried.<br/>She shook her head and a loose curl tumbled forward from her pinned hair.  “I get sea sick,” she added with a limp shrug.<br/>Oliver reached for Felicity's hands and she let him.  His one hand taking both of hers.  “I know a cure for that,” he soothed.<br/>The weight on her hands felt safe, even though she knew he was anything but. </p><p>“Señor Queen, a moment of your time please,” a man with a shock of black hair and tight eyes pleaded.  He would have been older, but not much.  His hands were shaking and his eyes were focused on the middle distance out the window.  “Señor Ángel is asking too much, the shipment is delayed a few days, please could...”<br/>Oliver’s fist beat down on the table and the man swallowed the rest of his sentence.  “What the fuck are you doing?” he growled, his face like thunder; twisted and tense.<br/>“It's just he...”<br/>Oliver stopped him again with his fist thumping the table a second time.  The cutlery clanged and the ice in Oliver's drink shook.  Felicity lifted her glass from the table, but it never made it to her lips; she was frozen. </p><p>“You’re coming to talk business with me while I’m entertaining?”  His voice, while not loud, was cold and threatening, and the man stumbled back half a step.  It was only then that the man looked to Felicity, fear and regret written on his expression.<br/>“I’m, I’m, sorry, I didn’t know,” he replied, his voice brittle and shaking.<br/>Oliver grabbed the man’s hand and slammed it onto the table, holding him by the wrist while he pulled a switch blade from his jacket pocket and stabbed it into the table, precariously between two of the man’s fingers.<br/>“You don’t have eyes? You can’t see the plates in front of us, the wine glass, the pretty girl sitting opposite me?” Oliver might have spoken in a low, hushed tone, but there was no mistake his boiling anger.<br/>“Please, I’m sorry,” was all the man could whimper.<br/>Oliver’s lips twisted into a dark, foreboding smile as he plucked the blade out of the table and held it above the last knuckle of the man’s middle finger.  “Oh, you will be,” he hissed darkly.</p><p>As he readied the sharp blade above the man’s trembling hand, Oliver looked across the table, fleeting and undeliberate, but enough to see the terror on her beautiful face.  Fear was an expression Oliver was used to seeing, he cultivated it, thrived on it, he needed it.  But on her it tore at the dark thorns that had long since surrounded his heart.  It reminded him.  <em>He’d been gone so long. </em></p><p>In a moment of lucidity, Oliver saw himself; dark, twisted, broken, blade in hand, ready to take a man’s finger for a small slight.  <em>Who had he become?</em></p><p>He released the man’s hand and pushed him away.  “Get the fuck out of here,” he fumed.<br/>The man didn’t need to be told twice and he ran from the restaurant without looking back.  Oliver attempted to continue with his meal, but his head was clouded and his brain was thumping into his skull.  He set down his fork and pushed his chair out.<br/>“Please excuse me Megan,” he said softly before he left the table and headed towards the back.</p><p>Felicity finally expelled the breath she had been holding.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Oliver made it to the bathroom and locked the door behind him.  Rage flowed through every heavy step he took across the peach-tiled floor.  His breathing was sharp and ragged, and his pupils blown wide, swallowing up the blue in shadows.  His hands were fisted tightly at his side’s before he punched one into the stall door, splintering a hole in it.</p><p>With pain throbbing through his hand and resonating up his arm, Oliver reached into his pocket and retrieved a packet of cigarettes.  He tapped the bottom on the vanity to pop one out which he hung from between his shaking lips.  After he found the chrome lighter in his pocket, he finally looked up and caught his reflection as he set the end of the cigarette alight.</p><p>He didn’t recognise the face looking back at him anymore.  The nightmares that stole his sleep now haunted his waking moments.</p><p>The death.<br/>The pain.<br/>His hands were drenched in blood.</p><p>He closed his eyes and took a drag on the thin white stick, slow and purposeful, to settle the itch under his skin.  He finished the cigarette to halfway before he stubbed it out on the smooth counter and left it there.</p><p>When he returned to the table, Felicity hadn’t eaten any more of her meal, but she was holding an empty champagne glass between her slender hands.  He fetched his wallet from his back pocket and left more than enough money to cover the meals and the damage he’d done to the door, before he offered Felicity his hand.</p><p>“We should go Megan.”<br/>She looked down at their half-eaten meals and nodded.  Her breath was still trembling in her throat and she was worried that any attempt to speak might show just how scared she was.  Not because she felt unsafe with Oliver; but more because she <em>didn’t.</em></p><p>She should have felt unsafe with the man who very nearly severed a man’s finger in front of her.  She should have been afraid of him, but every bone in her body told her not to be.  Her fear wasn’t from him, but rather what she seemed so willing to accept.</p><p>The lines she was willing to cross.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Outside the air was still humid, but Felicity shivered in a gentle breeze.  His car was already waiting for them when they arrived and Oliver walked Felicity to her door, opened it, and helped her in.  But, as he was closing her door, he looked up and saw a face in the shadows.  He opened Felicity’s door again and leaned closer to speak with her.</p><p>“Stay here, I’ll be back in a moment.”<br/>She nodded as he closed the door and set the alarm; effectively locking her in.</p><p>Oliver walked quickly towards the line where the light dissipated into shadows.<br/>“What the fuck are you doing here?” he whispered, gravelled and angry.<br/>“Seven was empty,” the deep voice whispered back from the recesses of night.<br/>“No shit. You took too long to get there.”<br/>“Where is the girl?”<br/>“I’ll handle it.”<br/>Oliver stepped away.  The conversation ended.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>They didn’t speak as they drove, but Felicity knew the direction they were travelling was not back to the compound.  Very soon, it became obvious Oliver was following the roads to the international airport, Aeropuerto Internacional de Culiacán.</p><p>He pulled into a taxi bay and stopped the car.  With his eyes looking straight ahead, he found his wallet and counted out a wad of cash that would see her home.</p><p>“This will buy you a ticket home and a little more,” he said softly as he handed her the money.  “No one will come looking for you, you have my word.”<br/>Felicity didn’t take the money, keeping her hands on her lap instead.  “I don’t understand,” she breathed, her eyes sinking in to his. <br/>“Go home Megan, go back to your life and your family.  You don’t belong in the dark.”  His words were spoken dryly, but she could sense the anguish in his voice.  <br/><em>Not without Alena.</em><br/>“You don’t want me here?” she whispered, forcing him to inch closer to her to hear the words she spoke.<br/>“It’s not that.”  The words cut his throat like thorns.</p><p>Felicity leaned across the smooth, soft interior of the car, where every inch of it was black.  Wordlessly, she touched his hand and it shivered as she traced the wings of the bird tattooed there.  “You told me that you wouldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do,” she breathed, her lips falling ever closer to his until they shared each other’s exhales.  “I don’t want to leave.”</p><p>As the last word floated off her painted lips, Felicity kissed him.  The kiss was passionate and unrestrained, her tongue breaking the seam of his lips and begging his tongue into her warm recesses.  When he obliged she sighed from her throat and sucked him deeper, coiling her tongue around his.  Blindly, and without breaking the amorous kiss, Felicity slid her hand down both his pants and his boxer briefs and found the base of his thick cock.  He growled against her mouth when her nails combed through his brush of pubic hair and her nimble fingers gripped his shaft.</p><p>He tried to slip away from the kiss, but she dragged him deeper with a keened moan that begged him closer, as she fondled his cock into a semi hard state that had his body tensing below her touch.  Finally, breathless and with his blood thumping south of the border, Oliver severed the kiss with his hands on her soft face.<br/>“This is your chance to leave,” he spoke, brittle and breathless.<br/>Felicity leaned over him and pushed the red ignition button, sparking the car into life once more.<br/>“Take me somewhere,” she hummed as she kissed the edge of his lips.</p><p>The ‘somewhere' was a sidling off a road that sat high in the back roads.  It looked over the city of busy twinkling lights and in the far distance the moon danced its reflections across the choppy sea.  He parked the car and the growl of the engine faded as the silence echoed around them.  His hands gripped the wheel, his knuckles turning white under the pressure as he kept his eyes focused ahead of him.  Felicity toed off her shoes and knelt on the seat of her chair as she loosened his belt and opened up his pants.  As she pulled his cock over the top of the waistband of his boxers, Oliver stroked a hand through her hair and tipped his head back against the headrest.  His tip was glistening and even in the dark Felicity could see the shadows of the veins snaking their way down his shaft.  Her tongue teased through the eye of his cock, licking the salty lubrication nestled there as Oliver moaned salaciously at her touch.</p><p>Bridging herself between the two seats, Felicity’s palm anchored to his leg as her nails clawed into his thigh.  Even through his pants Oliver felt it and he hissed in dark pleasure.<br/>“Fuck,” he groaned and Felicity looked up from his lap, her lips wet and her eyes wide.<br/>“Do you want me to stop?” she asked quietly before her tongue slowly dragged from one corner of her lips to the other.<br/>He combed his fingers roughly through her pinned hair, loosening a few that dropped to the ground.<br/>“That’s the last fucking thing I want,” Oliver hummed as he reached underneath her stomach and pulled up the button on the centre console that opened the top of the car.  With a purr, the top folded away and the cool night enveloped the car.</p><p>Felicity sat up and while Oliver watched her with dark eyes and his heartbeat racing, she worked her fingers down the front of his white shirt, opening each button.  Watching him lick his lips in anticipation, Felicity skimmed her fingernails lightly down his abdomen, relishing the way he twitched involuntarily beneath them.</p><p>Reaching his navel, she leaned down and planted a wet kiss just below it, which caused Oliver to emit a deep and pleasurable groan from the recesses of his throat.  Her fingers coiled around his base, strangling it so wonderfully tight that his ass raised a fraction off the seat and with her free hand, Felicity pushed his pants a little further down.</p><p>As Felicity began to ride her hand up and down his shaft, Oliver met her rhythm with his own thrusts.<br/>“Fuck,” he exclaimed as a groan, while her fingers coaxed more clear juices from the tip of his cock.</p><p>She ran her thumb through the pre-cum, coating his pulsing girth as his breathing skyrocketed and his balls tightened.  Electric pulses rippled through his body as her hand alone catapulted him to exquisite and dizzying heights.   His thighs and ass tensed as Felicity worked him harder and faster, slipping and squeezing his shaft with each pass.  His knuckles whitened, gripping the seat, as Felicity parted her lips, leaned down, and playfully flicked her tongue across his engorged helmet.  He grabbed gently at her hair, encouraging her to take him into her mouth, and all he could do was groan when her lips finally returned to his thick cock, enclosing around them.</p><p>His hand cradled the back of her neck, but Felicity didn’t need the guidance as her head bobbed expertly up and down his cock, gliding it against the roof of her mouth and holding her hand tightly at his base.  Every inch of his body flooded with warmth, and in a brighter environment no doubt his skin would have looked a pale shade of pink.</p><p>Ecstasy tore splintered groans from his mouth as his balls trembled and a familiar pulsation settled at the base of his shaft.  He was so close that there was nothing he could do to stop it.  He wanted nothing more than to explode in her mouth, but he cried out his fair warning with a shaky and deep voice, “I’m going to cum.”</p><p>She must have heard him, as her eyes darted up to his, but she stayed her course, taking him as deeply as her mouth could accommodate.  As she reached the tip and circled it one last time with her tongue, Oliver’s jaw clenched and he jerked upwards, before his cock erupted forcefully, expelling ribbons of release into her mouth.</p><p>Felicity swallowed it down before the taste could settle on her tongue as his cock continued to spasm against her lips.  With two strong hands, Oliver lifted her from her seat and sat her on his lap.  His wet cock slapped against her thighs before she shuffled to nestle it comfortably between her ass cheeks.  He hummed at the fabric of her panties gliding against his twitching cock while his hands skimmed up her powdery arms.  He moved one to her back and peeled down the zipper of her dress., before he slid both of her straps down her arms.  </p><p>Her dress crumpled around her waist before Oliver stripped the bra from her body too.  With a smile, he hung the wispy black fabric from the rear view mirror.  With her breasts now exposed, Felicity shivered as the tepid breeze teased her nipples delightfully.  His thumbs circled the crescents of her breasts making Felicity hum through parted lips, but the touch was short lived as Oliver placed his hands behind his neck and leaned back on them.</p><p>“Play with yourself Megan,” he encouraged, his tongue pushing through his lips to wet their edges before pulling back.  “Show me what touch you like.”<br/>She nodded blithely as she leaned back enough to press her shoulders against the top of the steering wheel.  With one finger she skirted her nipple, feeling it as the skin tightened around it and the bud itself grew tight.</p><p>Her eyes were lidded, but she could still watch him as his intense gaze followed every movement of her hand.  When both her nipples were hard, Felicity cupped her breasts and sliced her thumbs across the hardened nubs, letting her pleasure leak out from her parted lips as slow, wet sighs.</p><p>As she moved one hand back and forth across her chest, the other danced soft fingers down her neck, across the jutted bone and dip of her clavicle, and up her throat.  Feeling his cock stirring, Oliver fanned his fingers around the back of Felicity’s neck and pulled her onto his waiting lips.</p><p>He kissed her fiercely, owning her lips and marking them with his teeth, before he soothed the skin with his tongue.  When he was finished he gently pulled her head back with a hand either side of her face.</p><p>“This is your last chance to leave Megan.  Ask me to drive you to the airport, get on the first plane out of here and never look back,” Oliver whispered, his thumbs scouting her cheeks.<br/>“Or?” she breathed, her nails tickling down his jaw.<br/>“Or you tell me to take you back to my room, where I’ll want to have your body every day, where you’ll be my vice and I’ll be your addict.  Where my lips will map every inch of you until you can't recognise yourself before me.  Where darkness will touch your life no matter how hard I try to keep it from you.  Where you see me for who I am.”<br/>As he finished, his eyes fell and his heart tightened in conflict.<br/>“I choose the <em>or,”</em> she purred as she embraced him, her breast flattening against his taut chest.</p><p>Perhaps, Felicity should have been worried at how easily that answer left her lips.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. || crumb</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey guys, as you may or may not know, my little home in this world has gone into a 4 week mandatory lockdown. For many people this gives the extra time to write, I'm not one of those people.</p><p>My kids are now home and my job is so, so, busy right now (these uncertain times can bring out the best and worst in people).  Day 6 and I have been working 8+ hour days, so I have less time! No Netflix and naps for me.</p><p>All that said, I will try to update over these coming weeks, but I can't make promises, obviously my kids and my work take precedence.  Thanks for your understanding (hopefully)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>It was the early hours of the morning when Oliver slipped out from the tangled sheets of his bed, carefully shifting his weight off the mattress slowly so he didn’t wake Megan asleep beside him.  His eyes were weary but he’d spent enough time in the dark for them to adjust without needing a light.  He glanced down at her naked back, mapping with his eyes the trails his mouth had taken down her spine as they’d enjoyed each other roughly from the moment they’d returned home until exhaustion had taken them both.</p><p>He was naked and as he bent over to feed his boxer briefs back on, he smiled at the twinge of pain that nipped at his lower back.  Deftly, his fingers traced the origins of the pain and he felt the undeniable lines of where her nails had dragged tracks through his flesh.</p><p>It wasn’t inherently that Oliver took pleasure in the pain of them, but they did make him feel alive, far more than anything had in a long time.  He took a cigarette from his nightstand and walked silently out to the patio, closing the doors behind him.  The cool air bit through him like a snake, but he enjoyed the refreshing chill of it as he leaned up against the railing.</p><p>He wasn’t in the mood for his usual view of the distant ocean and instead, Oliver positioned himself at an angle where he could see the faint outline of the woman, asleep and naked, in his bed.  She had proved herself an enigma, seemingly showing up during a time in his life where he needed no distractions, where he required all his focus, and yet his heart was heavy and his brow was weary and his soul was so very, very tired.</p><p>Oliver took a long, slow drag on the cigarette, letting its poison full his mouth before he blew it out in a spiralling stream above his head.  He should have made her leave, forced her out of the car at the airport with no other choice to be made.</p><p>Hell, Oliver had threatened many a person and made them do exactly what he’d asked of them, he could have done the same to her.  But, he hadn’t.  All the tools at his disposal, and he’d wanted her to say no.  He’d wanted her to offer herself to him, for his greedy hands to feel her body and for his famished lips to taste her release.</p><p>The truth was, Oliver had wanted her.</p><p>He’d wanted her to be his.<br/>
He’d wanted her pleasure.<br/>
He’d wanted every inch of her.</p><p>And, he’d given himself over to that want.</p><p>He took another inhale and blew it out the same way as he watched her.  He watched her until there was nothing left to smoke and even the butt had burned away in the ashtray, and then he let himself inside, took his laptop from his desk and sat in the farthest corner of the room on an antique chair.</p><p>He navigated his way to the right fields and quietly tapped in her name: <em>Megan Jones</em> and the birthdate he’d memorised from the Florida state licence in her wallet.</p><p>He found her easily, and his screen flooded with information.  Born 24 July 1994, Megan was 24, turning 25.  She’d had odd jobs, but nothing that had stopped her floating around the state, and nothing that ever tied her down for more than a few months.  Her history was full of people that probably didn’t remember her.  He found that interesting.</p><p>She had grown up in Florida, which Oliver found odd given her body’s aversion to the humid heat that evening.  But, he kept on reading.  She was an only child and her parents still lived in the State.  Their number was listed, but it hadn’t been on her phone when he’d checked it.</p><p>She had been arrested twice on misdemeanours, and had never served any jail time.  She’d done two years of community college, but didn't appear to have graduated.  She had travelled around the United States and Canada, but had never been farther than that.  There were a few trips in and out of Mexico in the last year, but nothing that seemed odd.  Her story about her last job being in El Paso seemed to check out; it was a small restaurant in a busy part of town.</p><p>Megan Jones was the type of girl that went missing.</p><p>The type of girl that no one looked for when they did.</p><p>But there was one thing that sat uneasy in Oliver’s mind.  A girl, regardless of her transient ways, didn’t simply willingly show up at a Cártel’s house on a bus full of prostitutes.  Stories like that one were predicated with drugs, yet she’d not once asked him for so much as a cigarette in one of the easiest places to score cocaine.  Her skin wore no marks he might have expected, including no visible track marks, and he had looked for them, <em>thoroughly.</em></p><p>He’d studied her devices carefully, they contained nothing unexpected and nothing out of the ordinary.  He’d found social media accounts that had been active and then fallen away over time, he’d found a camera roll of various locations and things.  He’d found remnants of failed romances with guys who didn’t appear to be worth her time.</p><p>There was nothing in any of her past or history that he should have been worried about.</p><p>But there was also nothing to suggest one day she would end up in his bed.</p><p>
  <em>Who was Megan Jones?</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Felicity woke to an empty bed and for a few hazy moments, she missed his weight on the mattress.  It had been only one night and the notion had seemed ridiculous, but there she was running her fingers over the empty side of the bed.  She stretched, noting the dull but pleasant ache between her legs as she lazily listened for any noise from the bathroom.  When she heard none, Felicity slipped out from between the sheets and found the robe Oliver had laid carefully over the foot of the bed.</p><p>Tying it around her waist, she was drawn to a note on her nightstand sitting on top a book-sized box.</p><p>
  <em> <strong>I’ll be back around lunch, call downstairs for breakfast but please don’t leave the room.  Keep the door locked until I come home.</strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em> <strong>~ Oliver </strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em> <strong>PS I thought you might want these back.</strong> </em>
</p><p>Felicity put the note to one side and lifted the lid of the ivory box.  Inside sat her tablet, wallet, glasses, and phone.  It was then she noticed her bag tucked beside the nightstand with what was left of her personal effects she had walked in with; a brush, lipstick, compact, nothing anyone would pay attention to.</p><p>She was grateful for her glasses and she carried them to the bathroom along with her phone.  She found the bug on the phone within minutes, although anyone else would have missed it.  Whoever was behind it had been savvy enough to fool a person like <em>Megan</em> but not Felicity.</p><p>She left it in tack and started running the shadow programme that made it look like Felicity was absently scrolling through Instagram.  That would be enough for them to believe their shadow bug was doing precisely what it was intended to.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Oliver’s phone vibrated in his pocket as he walked half a step behind Adrian.  A quick glance told him all he needed to see; Megan was awake and he would be sent any information she inputted on her phone.</p><p>“Is that the old ball and chain?” Adrian smirked as he stopped outside a warehouse at a backlot in the middle of nowhere.  What looked like an isolated and dilapidated car manufacturing plant was actually a hub for packing and delivering bricks of cocaine ready to travel into the States.  The security cameras and the barbed wire fences should have clued up anyone looking, but around these parts no one was looking.</p><p>The heat was suffocating and a cool gust of air conditioned air leapt out of the warehouse as Adrian opened the heavy metal door.  The dusty, unkempt front was definitely a facade as the inside of the same building was hospital-grade clean with low hung florescent lights and polished chrome tables which were loaded up with boxes.</p><p>The first table Oliver walked past would have had a street value of nearly $50k and there were five identical tables in that corner of the room alone.  It was also a hive of activity with a handful of people busing themselves and, of course, Oliver counted five heavily armed men, he expected there were at least twice that amount positioned in that one warehouse.</p><p>“Is she into threesomes?” Adrian asked casually as his lips smacked while he chewed his peppermint gum.<br/>
“Who?” Oliver grunted tersely.  He was in no mind for Adrian’s musings.  It was fucking hot and he was wearing a full leather jacket and gloves.<br/>
Adrian glanced over his shoulder with a wicked glint in his eye.  “Your blonde,” he hummed the last word as if the mere mention of her was appetizing.  <br/>
Oliver's eyes narrowed tightly; <em>fucking son of a bitch.</em><br/>
“She tasted like honey, sweet, swe-.”<br/>
Before Adrian could finish his sentence the steel barrel of Oliver's gun was pressed into his temple.  A nearby heavy twitched, unsure what he was supposed to do in such an event as Adrian raised his hands slowly.</p><p>“Fucking talk about her again,” Oliver growled; low, deep, and horrifically menacing.<br/>
But Adrian didn’t lose his smile.  “Noted, no threesomes,” he remarked.<br/>
Oliver holstered his gun under his coat again.<br/>
“Well you were fucking useless,” Adrian huffed at the nearby <em>gun.</em>  “Were you just going to stand there and let him fucking shoot me, fucking useless.”<br/>
The guy lifted his machine gun and pointed it at Oliver, but he was unsure and along with his shaking hand there was a veil of sweat across his brow.<br/>
“Oh for fucks sake, where the fuck do we find these guys, Jesus fuck give me strength,” Adrian roared as he pulled open another door and stomped through.</p><p>Oliver looked at the semi automatic pointed at him and laughed before he shook his head and followed Adrian through the door.</p><p>The next room was darker and far less cleaner.  It was small, 20 paces squared, and it had probably once being a storeroom or office.  The concrete floor was stained with dark patches and there was a rank but familiar smell permeated into the walls.  People came here to die, or kill.  There were no exceptions.</p><p>Against the back wall there was a single metal chair bolted to the floor.  Sitting on it was a bound man with cropped hair, brown eyes, and a bloodied and likely broken nose.  His head slumped forward when Adrian walked closer, but it jolted upwards when Oliver closed the door behind them.  There was two others in the room, a large <em>Halcones</em> with a snarl and biceps the size of babies’ heads, and a runty guy with lifts in his shoes and a tick on the left side of his face.  Oliver knew them both, but neither were important enough for him to acknowledge them by name.</p><p>He didn’t know the guy in the chair.</p><p>“Ricardo Díaz,” Adrian said cheerily as he went to touch the man's cheek, but after seeing the dry blood splattered across it, he decided against it.  “This is Oliver, do you know Oliver?” he asked as he wiped his hand with a white handkerchief.<br/>
Díaz looked up at Oliver who was standing silently with his gloved hands clasped in front of him.  His glance was superficial and he shrugged in reply.  “I don’t fucking know,” he coughed, spitting blood on his stained trousers.<br/>
“You’re going to hurt his feelings,” Adrian prattled while he buffed his silver cufflinks.<br/>
“Sure, yeah, sure, I know him,” Díaz stammered.<br/>
Adrian shrugged, he really hadn’t cared either way.  It was always a theatrical game to him.</p><p>“You stole something from me Ricardo, and you got messy when I tried to help you,” Adrian taunted, scuffing the soles of his polished shoes on the grubby floor; <em>theatrics.</em><br/>
“You got it back man, and the girl that died she was no one, I got rid of her body I swear,” Díaz offered staunchly.<br/>
Oliver rolled his eyes, the bound man was bouncing between tough guy and grovelling, losing all his dignity in the process.<br/>
“You think that’s all that matters here?” Adrian chortled.  It was an exaggerated laugh and it echoed off the four walls surrounding them and made Díaz startle.<br/>
Oliver decided his inability to pick a mood or focus was probably because he was inexplicably high.  His conclusion was affirmed when he started to laugh along with Adrian.</p><p>Frustrated and hot, Oliver drew a line across his brow with his fingertip and sighed, exacerbated.<br/>
“You think you can steal from me, from <em>Sangre,</em> and that everything would be okay?” Adrian spoke chillingly under his breath.<br/>
“I’m sorry Adrian, I’m real sorry, I just...,”<br/>
Adrian cut him off with a sharp biting, “Sorry?!”<br/>
“Let me tell you a story,” he continued, his voice lowering to a soft hum that you had to focus to hear.</p><p>Oliver checked his watch and blew out a disgruntled sigh.<br/>
“There are people who say sorry, and there are...,”<br/>
Adrian was brutally interrupted when a shot rung out in the small room.  A single shot between the eyes, a halo of splattered blood painting the wall behind the chair, the gun gripped in Oliver's left hand.  Done.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Adrian raged as he wiped a drop of blood from his cheek.  “What the fuck was that?”<br/>
“What was what?” Oliver asked as he checked the bullets left in his barrel before tucking it back into his shoulder holster.<br/>
“You shot him!” Adrian gaped.<br/>
“That’s why I’m here isn’t it?” Oliver remarked before he peeled off his jacket; <em>finally.</em></p><p>He turned it inside out and made a mental note to check it for blowback later before he hung it over his forearm.<br/>
“Yes but I wasn’t done,” Adrian muttered as he religiously checked his grey jacket for splatter.<br/>
“Done talking to him? If you wanted to torture him you would have called Jacó. You didn’t, you called me,” Oliver commented as he began to roll up his shirt sleeve.  “I shoot.”<br/>
“I was monologuing.”<br/>
Oliver fastened the first sleeve just below his elbow and moved to the other side.  “What for?”<br/>
“For effect and teaching him a lesson.”<br/>
Oliver glanced at the man slumped over, dead.  “I think he learned his lesson.”<br/>
Adrian had taken off his jacket and was fastidiously checking it.  “I had a whole speech planned about how you don’t steal from us, goddamit Oliver.”<br/>
“But then you were just going to have me shoot him anyway.”<br/>
“Of course,” Adrian huffed.  His jacket had a few pin prick sized stains.  “But after.”<br/>
“Why?”<br/>
“I don’t know fuck, to make an example out of him, fuck, what the fuck?”<br/>
“An example to who, he was going to be fucking dead, who was he going to tell?” Oliver argued while he finished rolling up his other sleeve.<br/>
“To them? I don’t fucking know,” Adrian grumbled as he nodded towards the other two men in the room who were watching the entire exchange.<br/>
Oliver turned to the men and the smaller one looked a little scared.  “Have you two learned from his example?” Oliver asked as he pointed down to the corpse.<br/>
They both nodded.<br/>
“There, lesson learned.” <br/>
Adrian blew out a frustrated huff.  “I had a whole thing,” he mumbled.<br/>
“If it makes you feel better, give your speech to his corpse.  I’ve got places to be.”  Oliver walked towards the door.<br/>
“You owe me another jacket,” Adrian called and Oliver stopped.<br/>
“That was already there,” he shrugged as Adrian pointed to the pocket of blood on his light jacket.<br/>
“No it fucking wasn’t,” Adrian shot back.<br/>
“It was,” Oliver opened the door but stopped in the doorway and turned back to Adrian with a smile plastered across his face.  “The stain on your pants wasn’t though,” he said before he walked out the way they’d come.<br/>
Adrian looked down at the left side of his pants and found a smattering of bright red blowback.  “Motherfucker, I mention a threesome and he fucking ruins my fucking pants,” he growled as he kicked a nearby stool.  He looked over at the two men still watching.  “What the fuck are you looking at? Clean this shit up before he starts to fucking stink.”</p><p>The men jumped into action as Adrian walked, muttering under his breath, out of the room.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Felicity could tell someone had done some reconnaissance on her, or at least on the fake life she had given herself.  Megan Jones... a no one.    She couldn’t tell who, they had enough knowledge or help to know how to keep their key strokes hidden, and they had gone quite deeply back into her planted history.  In other words, they had followed the trail Felicity had laid out for them.</p><p>She just hoped it was enough.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Oliver let himself into her motel room on the third floor and closed the door with a soft click.  He was aware of the gun strapped to his chest and he waited a few silent moments to listen for any noise inside the small studio room.  Only once he was satisfied that his honed instincts told him he was alone, did Oliver let down his guard and lock the door behind him.</p><p>He took in each corner of the room from the vantage point of the door, studying it slowly and without comment, even to himself.</p><p>He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he looked all the same.  He walked towards the window first and stood in front of it, letting his fingers drag down the hem of the gauzy fabric.  It slipped through his fingers like liquid, stained and bleached cream by the sun's heat.  Her 'view' was of the city and the bustling street beneath her.  There was nothing remarkable about it, nothing Oliver considered relevant.</p><p>Next he checked the nightstand.  A Catholic Bible sat in the top drawer, along with a faint layer of dust.  The cubby underneath had no door and a discarded alarm clock sat in the recess.  He crouched to check the same, unravelling the cord and cracking open the back where it also ran on batteries.  There was nothing remarkable about it either.  He left it just as he found it and looked carefully under the bed.  It was low to the ground and dark, so Oliver retrieved a small torch from his pocket, lay flat on the carpeted floor and searched underneath it.  He shone the light up into the underside of base and used a gloved hand to check the edge of the hessian cover.  While he found a few tears in the old fabric, nothing felt out of the ordinary.</p><p>He pulled the linen off the bed and scrutinized the white bottom sheet before he pulled that off too.  The mattress was riddled with dark aged stains under the protector, but there were no recent damage he needed to examine closer.  He picked up each sheet and blanket, one at a time to ensure nothing was caught between them before they ended up on a pile on top of the stripped mattress.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>He checked the lamp, removing the bulb and running his fingers along the inside of the shade.  Nothing.</p><p>There was only a tea tray and jug for a "kitchen" and the only thing he learned from those two things was that she preferred coffee.</p><p>The fridge only had a small carton of milk and an old takeout container.  The takeout was nearing rank, at least 3 days' old.  The milk was fresher but would be turning in a couple of days.  Whatever mug she used to make her drinks, she rinsed, dried, and put back as there were no traces of dirty dishes left around.</p><p>The drawers were empty.  Her suitcase was neat and packed; he would check that again later.</p><p>In the bathroom, Oliver checked all the drawers but found nothing.  She hadn't been around enough to leave toothpaste marks on the sink and hadn't felt comfortable enough to allow her things to drift into that room.</p><p>An empty toilet roll and a few strings of floss were all he found in the trash can.  She either hadn't used the small bath under the shower or she had cleaned it up afterwards, as there was no filmy ring around the edge.</p><p>Oliver made his way back to her suitcase and laid it on the bed.  Her clothes were folded neatly but not overly so as he carefully looked through them.  He found a pair of jeans and a cotton bra which he set to one side.  Her clothes seemed tidy and freshly laundered, and her toiletries were kept neatly in a stripy bag.</p><p>After peeling open the foil packet Oliver did a trace test on the jeans and bra but neither showed any trace elements of narcotics.  Megan was either extremely careful, or she was clean.</p><p>Either way, there was nothing else this room could tell him.  He repacked her small suitcase, and after paying her bill at the front desk, Oliver drove home.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Felicity tore a frustrated hand through her tresses.  Her eyes were tired, her body exhausted, and each path she took was a dead end on an infinite highway of paths.</p><p>She had begun to second guess herself, and what she had seen.  Perhaps her brain had been addled that night from whatever concoction she had been given before she was left in the unfamiliar motel room, and what she thought she had seen as Alena was nothing more than her imagination coloured with false hope.</p><p>But, then she saw it; a blip.<br/>
Like a spec on a dirty floor.</p><p>She couldn't be sure what she was looking at, time stamped 3 days ago, was what it appeared to be.</p><p>It was only one word; hidden amongst a myriad of others, <em>Helix.</em></p><p>To anyone else it would mean nothing, a word caught in a fragmented cache, but to Felicity it meant something.  It was the whiteboard name to a venture she had yet to see through to fruition and there was only one person who knew that.</p><p>Alena.</p><p>Everything in Felicity's bones told her she was alive and she was close.</p><p>And then she put her own spec out into the world; <em>I'm coming.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Dedicated to the anon that suggested I use more canon characters; there I used Diaz 🙃</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. || possession</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just to take a moment to remind you this is not a story where every decision is a good one.  My intentions are to fray the edges of "right" and "wrong", to question morality, determination, and motives, while balancing it all on the edge of something more.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Oliver returned home around the time he had promised but when he walked into the room he made no effort to look at Felicity as he left her suitcase just inside the room and disappeared into the bathroom.</p><p>Felicity looked up from the chair where she was flicking through a magazine Rosa had slipped under the door.  While she readily admitted she barely knew the enigma that was Oliver Queen, his behaviour in that moment seemed odd to her, almost trancelike.  She left the magazine on the seat of the chair and made her way to the bathroom.</p><p>She was wearing a pair of shorts that sat high up her ass and every second step she took, she found herself tugging them down; <em>but when in Rome</em>, and they were one of the things Oliver had purchased for her.  She stopped in the doorway of the bathroom where she found Oliver scrubbing what looked like a leather jacket.  His lips were expressionless and his eyes were focused downward.</p><p>Felicity walked back into the bedroom to the small alcohol cabinet she had discovered earlier that day.  She dropped a few ice cubes from the mini fridge into a tumbler then poured a double nip of Kentucky whiskey into the same before she carried it back to the bathroom.</p><p>Wordlessly, she set the glass down on the side of the vanity.  The sound of it made Oliver's eyes jolt up, and the surprise he wore was as though he had forgotten he would even find her there.</p><p>Felicity glanced into the sink and saw the water tinged red.  Without asking, she decided it was blood he was cleaning from the front of his jacket; <em>the life he lived.</em></p><p>“Let me,” she said softly as she reached for the jacket.  But, Oliver pulled it away with a flash of fear and regret in his eyes.</p><p>He stopped the tap and left the jacket hanging over the edge of the vanity as he swallowed down the drink she'd brought him in one mouthful.</p><p>He craved the bite of it as it cascaded down his throat; the burn, the heat… he craved a lot of things.</p><p>With a sudden imposition, Oliver had Felicity up against a wall, his body pinning her there while his fingers drifting down her body, afraid to touch.  His pupils were dilated and his lips parted as if he meant to speak but he didn't have words.  With her eyes wrapped in his and reading the desire in his eyes, Felicity worked her fingers down the buttons of her casual white shirt until the soft fabric draped open and exposed her chest.</p><p>She wore no bra and Oliver slowly peeled back one side of her opened shirt to reveal her pert breast to his gaze; creamy skin, rose-hued nipple, teasing his eyes…his fingers aching to feel her softness, as though they’d only felt the brutal roughness for much too long.  The cotton shirt hung lose around her shoulders, the starkness of it playing beautiful tricks with the pinkish tint of her warm body.  Felicity moved her hands deftly, and silently, to the closure of her shorts.  She knew what he wanted…<em>when in Rome</em>.  Once open, she shuffled the tiny shorts down her legs and kicked them away at the ankles.</p><p>“You don't need to talk,” she said as she soothed her fingers through his bristled beard.  <br/>
Oliver stepped back to admire her; the beauty and the innocence she portrayed amongst such heinous darkness, before he took her hands and led her to the edge of the vanity where he rested her fingers on the bevelled edge and then he made his way behind her.</p><p>Their eyes met in the mirror as he opened up one side of her shirt and exposed her breast along with the mark he'd left on her previously, it was faded somewhat, but the message still remained.</p><p>
  <em>She was his.</em>
</p><p>With a touch no heavier than a feather, Oliver lightly circled her nipple with one finger, which pulled a shallow breath from her lips.  Pulling back, Oliver fed the same finger into his mouth, wetting it with salvia in a show Felicity watched tenaciously in the mirror, before he ran the wet finger across the tip of her nipple and wove painfully slow circles around her areola.</p><p>But no sooner had he begun, as Felicity was freshly aroused, he stopped and moved to the crescent of her breast, cupping it gently.  Then he did the same on the other side.</p><p>“You showed me what you liked,” he whispered into her ear, keeping his eyes tethered to her reflection before he kissed slowly down her neck.</p><p>His hands tightened around her breasts, squeezing them as his palms kneaded her rounds.  A breath dripped from her lips as he kissed around to the back of her neck; her hair pulled up into a ponytail exposing the same.  She didn't fight the pleasure as Oliver surprised her with tiny scratches of his thumbnail over the tip of her coiled nipple.</p><p>Soon, Felicity was rocking on the balls of her feet and her chest was blushed with a warm pink hue that dripped down from her throat.</p><p>Her breasts were aching and her throat swollen with a hitched breath as Oliver dragged his fingers down her body and stopped at her hips, tilting them up.</p><p>Her ass pressed into the hard erection he was nursing in his pants and when Felicity circled her hips to ruck against it, a deep raspy moan fell from his lips and caressed her neck.</p><p>But, he wasn't to have her like that. Not right now.  <br/>
“Do you want this?” he asked, his raspy voice trailing off as he kissed the slope of her neck.  He blinked up, staring at her reflection in the mirror before he whispered the next few words, “Do you want me?”<br/>
She brushed her ass against his erection a second time, slower than the first, milking out a moan from the deep recesses of his gut.  “I want this,” she breathed as she danced her own fingers delicately across his mark of possession, “I want you.”<br/>
Feeling the pleasure in his painful throb, Oliver knelt on the hard floor and drove a deep, wet kiss onto her ass while his thumb sliced between her folds.</p><p>She hummed warmly at the first swipe of pressure and reactively her stance widened for his hand.  Teasingly, Oliver stroked his fingers up the insides of her legs, making her skin tingle with a fresh batch of goosebumps. </p><p>He spent his time there, where Felicity couldn't see him, touching and stroking her skin on her rear with torturous precision.  As if he knew exactly what she wanted... needed.</p><p>Her mind was foggy and her breath stilted as she hung onto the last fractions of herself, silently reminding her reflection that she was here for a reason, a purpose, this was a means to an end… a part to play.  As the last words tore at her soul, Felicity closed her eyes to the realities to give herself over to the pleasures.</p><p>His kisses were deliberate and slow, marking every inch of her wetness and tasting her arousal as it met his tongue.  The petals of her folds were soft and velvety, and he forced himself to savour each stroke over devouring her in haste.</p><p>“Do you want my mouth to fuck you?” he asked before he nipped at her ass.<br/>
“Yes,” she breathed, refusing to look at herself as her body dripped with arousal and tickled with anticipation.</p><p>It was all he needed and Oliver's head was again between her legs, his eyes looking up the smooth slopes of her stomach and breasts.</p><p>He kissed her lightly, teasing a sigh from her before she bit the edge of her lip.  The muscles in her legs tightened as Oliver fondled her clit with his lips, kissing and sucking with varying degrees of pressure which kept her wildly on the edge.</p><p>His finger skirted her entrance which made Felicity shiver before he twisted his tongue across her sensitive clit.  Her breathless pants wordlessly urged him for more as he continued his tease before he pushed two digits into her tight slit.</p><p>She gasped, fogging up the mirror with her hot breath while he started to work his fingers in and out of her hole.</p><p>And then he stopped.</p><p>The abruptness was painful and Felicity shuddered and sobbed out a breath.  Keeping her so near to climax, Oliver kissed her wet nether lips before he looked up at her and smiled.</p><p>“Take what you want,” he hummed as he tipped his chin upwards and brushed his prickly beard against her folds.  </p><p>On her tiptoes and with her fingers pinching the edge of the vanity, Felicity began to rock, taking her pleasure from the swipes of his tongue that she now controlled.  </p><p>Pressure built and coiled deep within her core as she grinded down onto his face while he feasted on her.  His fingers thrust deeper and harder as her pace grew, mimicking her needs.  Heat brandished her body from the inside out until she couldn't stand it a moment longer.</p><p>The intensity of her climax was like a cannon and had it not been for Oliver grabbing her hips tightly, Felicity was sure she would have crumpled to the ground.</p><p>But he was not finished with her yet, and Oliver continued to explore her silken folds with his lips and tongue, bathing them in her release.</p><p>He carried her to the bed and lay her down.  She sighed as the airy linen enveloped her and instinctively her legs began to close.</p><p>“Keep them open,” he instructed and with a lazy nod Felicity obeyed.<br/>
He lit a cigarette as Felicity shook through the last beautiful moments of her release.</p><p>Oliver took a drag on the cigarette perched between two fingers on one hand as the other drew a languid line down her thigh.</p><p>She watched him with hungry eyes as he adjusted the erection still sheathed in his pants.</p><p>Every inch of his body wanted to sink his throbbing cock inside her.  He knew her walls were slick and tight, and he had not forgotten how snuggly she held him.</p><p>He wanted to fuck her deep and ravenously; taking every inch of her body for his own pleasure.</p><p>He wanted to.</p><p>Which is precisely why he didn't. </p><p>He watched as her folds lightened and the spend on her thighs dried to a sticky gloss.</p><p>“Get your swimsuit on,” he said with a smile before he took another inhale of cigarette.  “Let's get you wet again.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Felicity's swimsuit was white with black trim; a simple low cut bottom with a bustier style top.  It was simple and fitted her perfectly, but the price tag still hanging from it made it clear that you paid for such simplicity.  Oliver was fascinated by it, the way the stark colours played off the milky tones of her skin.</p><p>Her body appeared flawless, not just in it's sweeping curves and tight skin, but she wore something Oliver had not seen in so long; a pure smile as she absently wrapped a black coverup around her waist.</p><p>Most women who passed through this house carried an absence in their eyes, one Oliver could not blame or resent them for, but it was there nonetheless.  Some wore it out of fear, others through naivety; but most wore it because of resignation – they were resigned to this life, this world, this dead end.</p><p>But not her.<br/>
And that fascinated him.</p><p>At times she was guarded with him, perhaps even practiced.  But, she didn't hold onto it for long and in moments when her body gave itself over to pleasure, he saw it.  He craved it and longed to earn it; to know what every intricate part of her body liked, or didn’t, because in those moments she wasn’t the only one who felt a taste of freedom.  In her pleasure, Oliver found something he never imagined he could – he found life.</p><p>A spark.<br/>
An ember.<br/>
A small, coaxing flame perhaps.</p><p>But it was there, beneath the surface.</p><p>A soul.</p><p>Something no one around here possessed anymore; not even him.</p><p>“You have impeccable taste,” she spoke with a smile as her fingers mapped the edges of her swimsuit.<br/>
He lifted her chin and kissed her softly.  She could still taste the remnants of the last cigarette he smoked as his tongue painted the seam of her lips.<br/>
“I do,” he remarked, but he wasn't talking about the swimsuit.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
The air outside was scorching as there was barely a scrape of cloud across the pale blue sky.  The atmosphere was alive with popular Latin music, the beats of which tangled their way into your body making it impossible not to move with it.</p><p>The downstairs pool room was opened up along one side onto the sandstone patio that surrounded the large oasis in-ground pool, which was designed to give the illusion of a lagoon in the dusty hills of Sinaloa.</p><p>Across the other side of the pool sat a tennis court and both were framed by lush, tropical plants that added to the illusion and the opulence.  The grandiosity of it all spoke of wealth, and the fact that such an oasis was clearly visible from the skies above spoke to how little the Cártel cared about hiding their dealings or the profit taken from such.</p><p>As Oliver and Felicity made their way outside, he paused while they were alone and leaned close into her ear.<br/>
“Stay with me baby,” he whispered and she nodded softly.<br/>
And then, as if for show, Oliver grasped his hand around the back of her neck and kissed her lips, rough and penetrating; marking her as his own for any eyes that looked on.</p><p>His hand slid down the inside of her bikini pants and a single digit snuck itself between the slopes of her smooth and temptingly curved ass.  He left it there as she walked, giving it a gentle squeeze as a man Felicity had yet to meet, but infamously knew, approached them.</p><p>“You must be the American girl,” Javier exclaimed as he took Felicity's hand and brought it to his lips.  She smiled, perfunctory and cold, but he didn't seem to notice as he pecked a chaste kiss against her knuckles.</p><p>He lowered her hand to her side.  “Turn for me?” Javier asked with a coy grin.  The question was not directed at Felicity, but rather at Oliver and with a gentle pat on her rear and a impish smile, she knew his answer to the request.</p><p>Felicity turned slowly, with her stomach in her throat as dark thoughts circled her mind.  She had put herself at the mercy of a man she barely knew, a disgraced detective, a murderer... he could give her over in an instance.</p><p>“Stunning,” Javier commented as Felicity finished her turn.  For a moment she felt alone, isolated and afraid, until Oliver wrapped his arm around her waist and held her tight against his body.</p><p>
  <em>Was it possible that she felt safe?</em>
</p><p>“Will she be your date to my birthday party this weekend?” The older man asked.  Felicity was once again finding it impossible to reconcile what she knew about the man with his unnerving charm.  She hadn't been sure what she had expected in meeting him face to face, but his baby blue eyes and impish smile were as unsettling as they were handsome.  Perhaps, after all, it was not so hard to see why the woman flocked to this life.<br/>
“Of course,” Oliver answered, and his fingers dipped into the waistband of her bikini bottoms to stroke her jutted hip.</p><p>Oliver would sooner see Megan removed from this world, but unless he could get her out of Sinaloa and at the same time be sure she wouldn't return, she was safer with him than without.</p><p>“I hope she can save me a dance then,” Javier reasoned warmly, offering her a debonair smile before he moved away from them.</p><p>Oliver leaned closer and kissed Felicity's cheek.  “I'm sorry Megan, but it was safer for you to allow it than refuse it,” he whispered and Felicity found herself believing every word.  He kissed her a second time before they walked to a row of empty loungers alongside the glistening pool.</p><p>He plucked the coverup from her body and draped it, and their towels, across two seats before he led her by the hand, the few steps to the edge of the pool.</p><p>Oliver lifted her chin up with a finger before he kissed her lips, playful and chaste, and then dived into the crystalline blue pool.  The splash he made sent refreshingly cool beads of water across Felicity’s body and she reacted with an impulsive and airy laugh before Oliver emerged from the water, beckoning her with both his hands and a childlike smirk.</p><p>Felicity perched herself on the edge, gasping a breath as she dipped her legs into the blissfully cold water.  Oliver waded over to her and his hands snaked up her smooth legs like ravenous vines, stopping at her hips.  He pulled her into the water and took the laugh that bubbled from her mouth with a kiss as her body floated up against his.</p><p>They glided through the crystal blue waters with only Oliver's feet touching the floor and in that moment, Felicity forgot both her surroundings and circumstances which had brought her there.</p><p>The cool water felt blithely refreshing to Felicity's fiery skin as she glided through it, ever conscious of the way Oliver's hands skimmed her sides.  When her eyes met his there was an intensity that sent a cool shiver down her spine, and yet it wasn't from fear but from excitement.</p><p>She hissed as the water reached her breasts and overtook them, and the chill instantly pebbled her nipples beneath the saturated fabric.  It was only once the water reached her shoulders that her toes could finally touch the smooth mosaic floor of the pool.</p><p>Without a word his arms enveloped her and pulled her tight, safe, against his chest.  She pecked his cheek and she felt it ruffle with a smile before she realised it had been an unconscious action on her part.</p><p>Perhaps she was just getting better at this charade.  She ran her fingers over the wet slopes of his back and twisted the tips into the nape of his hair as he kept her afloat while her feet barely tread water.</p><p>“Do you see him behind me?” Oliver whispered, words hidden below the pretence of deep, intimate kisses up her neck.</p><p>Her eyes drifted over the slope of his shoulder to the other side of the pool where a group of three sat; Ángel, Matías, and an older man Felicity believed to be Nicolas.  Matías was being entertained by a petite girl Felicity didn't recognise and Nicolas was smoking a cigar with a drink in his hands.  His sunglasses hid what direction his eyes were focused on.  Ángel, however, hid nothing.  His gaze was hot and angry, and directed at them.</p><p>“Yes,” she breathed, a shiver in her voice as his teeth nipped at her jutted collarbone.<br/>
“He needs to know who you belong to.”  Oliver's breath was hot against her skin, his tone gravelled and brittle.<br/>
His lips sunk onto hers with a sudden and brutal force before his large hand drove up the side of her body and curled around her throat.  It was enough to still the breath in her throat and Oliver only released her when her quivered whimper tickled his lips as she strained for a breath.<br/>
“And who do you belong to?” he asked.  He kept his hand there, on her throat, but his grip was relaxed and he could only faintly feel her swallow a breath.<br/>
“You.”<br/>
He mapped the sculptured curve of her cheekbone with his thumb as he rewarded her with a smile.</p><p>With her eyes latched to his, Felicity didn't notice his other hand below the surface until it was between her legs, stroking her sex through her sodden swimsuit.</p><p>“I want to show him who you belong to,” he whispered as he pressed a finger hard against her clit.<br/>
The sensation was jarring as a jolt of reactive pleasure made her body jerk in the water, creating a halo of ripples around them.</p><p>Oliver knew this world.<br/>
Ángel needed to be told, lest he forget it.</p><p>With a strength she had already come to know, Oliver turned them in the water, spinning her at the waist until her back was planted against his chest.  She treaded water lightly as one sinewy arm banded around her stomach, sitting low at the edge of her ribs.</p><p>Ángel was still watching them, apparently unashamed of the heat and ferocity with which he stared.  And, while Felicity couldn't see Oliver's expression, she imagined it looked much the same.</p><p>The first press of Oliver's lips onto her skin came at the neck, just below the seam of her ear.  It was deliberate and demonstrable before he dragged his lips down the slope and towards the cusp of her shoulder.</p><p>As he reached the edge, his hand dipped between the fabric of her top and her smooth, wet skin, to cup her breast.  He kneaded it firmly and Felicity rucked in his grip as her head tipped back and a sigh bled from her parted lips.</p><p>He teased her nipple with deliberate strokes and light pinches as the water lapped against them and became agitated around their edges.  Her eyes had drifted closed and she was breathing, trembled, from her parted lips while Oliver continued to kiss the cords of her neck.</p><p>Ángel's eyes had narrowed and even from the distance across the pool, Oliver could see the intense strain in his jaw as his back teeth grinded together.</p><p>“Take off your bottoms,” Oliver growled.  Felicity's eyes flickered open, unsure if she had heard his raspy command correctly.  He repeated it and she buckled in the water to roll them down her legs and kick them off from her ankle.</p><p>It surprised her how eagerly she had obliged his whim, but knowing how close she was to finding Alena and that he could throw her out at any moment, spurred her every action... or at least that was what she told herself.</p><p>When she brought the bottom of her bikini to the surface Oliver plucked it from her hand and raised it like a wet flag.  She felt the apples of her cheeks erupt with a hot blush as he shouted a Spanish expletive with a brutish laugh.</p><p>With her eyes closed, Felicity heard the wet slap of the fabric against skin as Oliver proudly displayed them on his shoulder.  She kept her eyes closed when he submerged his hand and she felt the water displace around her.  He rested the heel of his palm on her naked mound and parted her nether lips with two fingers while the other rubbed between her folds.  The inside of her lip ached as she bit down on it with the first, heavy brush of his rough finger.</p><p>Oliver’s shout had drawn the attention of others, and when Felicity opened her eyes a slither, she could see Matías watching them too.  She felt embarrassed, exposed, perhaps even a little angry, but all those feelings were hard to focus on as his thumb teased her clit while a thick digit skirted her entrance.  She tried to shift in his grip, but his strength was too much and her ribs ached after the attempt.  </p><p>He was focused, narrow-minded, and unaware of the shaky breaths whimpering from her lips as he plunged a finger inside her.  Her body jerked in his grip as he drove the finger to the knuckle and her tight walls squeezed around him.  He began thrusting the same vigorously as his mouth latched onto her throat, marking her dewy skin with a fresh scarlet kiss.</p><p>“Oliver, please,” she breathed and he heard something other than pleasure in her voice.  He heard fear.</p><p>His darkness.<br/>
<em>Too much.</em><br/>
Oliver hated himself in that instant; hated who he’d become, how far he'd fallen into the darkness.  He was broken and damaged, allowing his actions to be spurred by the very things he despised.  <em>How had this become him?</em> Too long.  He’d been gone too long.  There was no coming back from this now.  He would live a villain.  He would die a villain.</p><p>His hand dropped from her body and he turned her around to face him, she flinched as his hand came up to her cheek, and her eyes only opened when he stroked his thumb across her damp cheek.</p><p>When he kissed her it was gentle and soft as he walked her back to the edge of the pool.  Wordlessly,  he handed her the sodden bottom of her swimsuit and she thanked him with a faint and uneven smile.  Once redressed, Oliver helped her out of the pool and she quickly found the towel and wrapped in around her.</p><p>It was a feeling she couldn’t explain, it wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed his hands on her or that Adrian hadn’t made her feel somewhat exposed the first night she was there, and she had walked into this world knowing what lines it would require she cross.  But, for a fleeting moment she had expected more from him.</p><p>Oliver pulled himself from the water, his muscles glistening as trails of water caught the light.  His smile was wide, boorish as he stood and clapped his hands together.<br/>
“Fucking perfect,” he laughed as he strode over to the loungers; giving them what they needed while hating every word he spoke.</p><p>
  <em>Too much darkness.</em><br/>
<em>Demons had wings too.</em>
</p><p>A couple of impish cheers resounded in response while Oliver superficially dried himself off.  He tossed the towel back on the empty seat and leaned down to kiss Felicity’s cheek.<br/>
“Lo siento,” he whispered near her ear before he pulled back.<br/>
<em>I’m sorry.</em><br/>
The words felt bitter in his mouth, not because he didn’t mean them, but because he couldn’t truly express how sorry he was.</p><p>
  <em>How far he had fallen.</em>
</p><p>And then he was gone, across to where the other men stood, laughing gregariously with a drink waiting for him.  Felicity sat back into the slatted chair, her wetness soaking through the towel as she steadied her breath and idly picked up a magazine that sat nearby.  She thumbed through it without paying it any mind.  She didn’t focused on the words at all, instead she heard his apology echoing through her head; in this world it was unheard of and yet it had sounded so genuine.</p><p>He glanced back at her as she looked up from the magazine and a weary smile altered his expression.  The last year hung like a weight on her shoulders as Felicity leaned back and looked at the cloudless sky.</p><p>
  <em>Where are you Alena?</em>
</p><p>Felicity didn’t even recognise the feeling of exhaustion that wracked her body and soon after she gave herself over to it, though it wasn’t restful.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Felicity awoke to someone gently shaking her shoulder.  Blurry-eyed, she found Adriana sitting there, worry etched her face.<br/>
“Oliver was looking for you, he’s angry,” she whispered, her voice hurried and thin.<br/>
Dazed, Felicity glanced around, but didn’t see Oliver where she had last seen him.  “Where?” she asked, fisting her hand into her eye.<br/>
“Just around there,” Adriana said, her eyes and her head darting towards to a hedge alongside the garden. The path that disappeared that way led to the small pool house, encircled by lush tropical plants.</p><p>Felicity threw the coverup around her body and stumbled towards the path to find Oliver.  With her bare feet padding over the heated cobblestones, she disappeared behind the trees, unsure where she was even heading.</p><p>Still not fully lucid, a hand grabbed her wrist and Felicity startled, but before she could make a sound, another hand clamped over her mouth.  In a heartbeat she was pressed against a wall with menacing brown eyes staring her down; Ángel.</p><p>Her nails tore at his arm, but it seemed to only make the twisted smile on his lips grow.<br/>
“You think you can fuck with me?” he growled, deep and terrifyingly foreboding.  His fingers twisted into her jaw and a muffled whimper came from her mouth as pain ricocheted down her body.  “Bitch,” he spat.<br/>
Pain throbbed down her arm as he jarred it behind her back taking it to the brink before it would break, as though he knew exactly what amount of force he could inflict.<br/>
“I could have you in every way in a place no one could hear you scream.”  His voice turned calm, deliberately so, and its calmness sent more of a chill down Felicity's spine than his rage had.</p><p>He leaned in close to her throat and instinctively Felicity screwed her eyes tightly closed as the tip of his nose dragged up her translucent skin.</p><p>“Would you scream for me there?” Ángel purred.  He was so close to her now that his cologne filled her nostrils with woodiness.</p><p>“What the fuck are you doing?” Máxi demanded as he walked up on the scene with his arm wrapped around Rosa's caramel shoulders.<br/>
“Nothing that fucking concerns you brother,” Ángel spoke with contempt he didn't attempt to hide.  “Keep walking.”<br/>
“Not without her,” the younger man stated, but Felicity saw an uneasiness in his eyes.</p><p>The silence was palpable before Ángel flicked the tail of his shirt back to reveal a pistol he wore at his hip.  It was a warning; to them both.</p><p>And then he laughed.<br/>
Airy, bright, in complete contrast to the menacing tone of his voice from a few moments before.<br/>
“She got lost, I was just helping her find her way back,” he replied; charismatic, cool, and collected.</p><p>He took Felicity's hand and his grip was enough to make her wince as it pinched her skin.  But, she was no match for his strength and he pulled her easily back the way she had walked, with Máxi keeping up.</p><p>Oliver saw red as Ángel approached dragging Felicity along behind him.   Only seconds before she'd been asleep under his watchful eye, and Oliver had only taken his eyes off her for a few moments to get her a drink from inside... when he'd returned she was gone, only to reappear with Ángel seconds later.</p><p>“I found something of yours wandering,” Ángel smirked, but he still kept his grip firmly around Felicity's wrist.  “Claims shouldn't be wandering the compound; there are lot of bad things that could happen.”</p><p>He pushed her forward and Felicity stumbled towards Oliver who didn't try to help her; fighting his every inclination to do just that.</p><p>“Didn't you warn her Oliver?” Ángel sneered.<br/>
Oliver's face was rigid; his lips tight and his eyes like ice as he looked down at Felicity.<br/>
“I'm sorry,” she spoke quietly, “I...,” she looked over to Adriana who was shaking, fear crippling her expression while she stabbed her nails into her own arm, an act which must have caused her pain.  “I forgot,” Felicity finished as she bowed her head and held her breath.</p><p>She expected retaliation, and her entire body was prepared for the same, but when it didn't come she wasn't sure whether to be relieved or  terrified.</p><p>“She forgot,” Ángel mimicked her words with a relished laugh.  “Did you not hit her hard enough or did you hit her too hard?”</p><p>Felicity looked briefly from one man to the other; she had no way of knowing the depth of animosity between them, but she knew not a one of them could be trusted and for that reason she said nothing of Ángel's threats.</p><p>But, she was also suddenly aware of the silent eyes that watched her, and more telling they were watching Oliver's reaction to her.</p><p>Oliver moved too fast for her to react, even on instinct, and his hand was soon gripping her chin, hard enough to pinch her lips together but not hard enough to actually hurt; she was under no illusion that if he wanted to make it hurt... he could have.</p><p>“I'll told you to stay,” he said coldly.  His voice was not cold, but there was also no warmth in it.<br/>
She blinked and a single tear sprung from the corner of her eye.  It wasn't planned or expected, but Felicity was too frozen to brush it away.  It slid down her cheek and bled into the lines on Oliver's thumb.</p><p>“I'm sorry,” she breathed, a tightness in her voice.<br/>
“Is she?” Ángel said before he smacked his lips together with a sound that made Felicity's skin crawl.  “How do you know she's sorry?”</p><p>Oliver released his grip on her and with a smooth slight of hand she soon found herself behind him, with Oliver standing between her and Ángel.</p><p>The next time Oliver touched her it was on the same wrist that Ángel had bruised red.  She winced and while he still held it, she swore Oliver's grip loosened.</p><p>“I'll make sure she is sorry,” he answered darkly before he walked Felicity back inside.<br/>
She thought about talking, but the tautness of his expression suggested she should keep silent.</p><p>Across the house, up the stairs, and into Oliver's room he led her, letting go of her grazed wrist only once inside the bedroom.</p><p>The door slamming made her body jolt and for a moment Felicity thought her legs might give way.  Her whole body was shivering and she was helpless to stop it as she stood paralyzed on that spot.</p><p>She expected his hands; his voice; his anger.</p><p>But instead she heard him sigh roughly.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked and she felt fingers slide gently down her arm to her wrist.<br/>
He lifted her hand gently and another sigh brushed over her bare shoulder as he saw the red finger burns on her porcelain skin.</p><p>She trembled as he soothed his thumb across the mildly painful mark.<br/>
“Are you okay?”<br/>
Still, she couldn't find her voice to answer him.<br/>
He lowered her hand to her side and moved himself around to the front of where she stood.  Her eyes were closed and she was breathing shakily from her parted lips.</p><p>His bent knuckle under her chin raised her to look at him and she slowly opened her eyes to his slow, calming breaths.<br/>
“Megan, are you okay?”<br/>
She nodded faintly.<br/>
He looked down at her wrist.  “Does it hurt?”<br/>
An even fainter shake of her head.</p><p>“What were you thinking?”<br/>
She had no voice to answer him.<br/>
He looked agitated and his hand was tremoring when he tore it through his damp hair as he paced short, sharp circles.  Instinct wanted Felicity to reach out to him, to sooth the beast, but she stayed guarded, and rightly so.</p><p>“Do you know what they expect me to do to you?” he asked, rhetorically.  And, while Felicity faintly shook her head, she did in fact have a pretty good idea what Oliver was alluding to.  <br/>
She watched his hand fist and once again she found herself involuntarily flinch at the movement.<br/>
“You disobeyed me,” he said, but what she heard was more frustration than anger.</p><p>Oliver looked at her; her skin was pale and her blue eyes wore conflict while her lower lip was marked with red spots where her teeth had left crevices.  He knew what would have been expected of him, he knew what each of those men would have done without a second thought, and ultimately what they would think of his inability or unwillingness to do the same.</p><p>Her punishment would have been swift, severe, and merciless. </p><p>Felicity felt herself swaying on the balls of her feet in the echoing silence, before she made a daring decision.</p><p>She kissed him, roughly.  Pulling his face down to hers with her fingers knotted in his hair.  She kissed him until he severed it brutally with his hands gripping her shoulders.  His eyes were dark and his lips straight, and she could almost hear every breath he took, slow and considered.</p><p>Eyes locked.<br/>
Lips wet.<br/>
Air thick and palpable.</p><p>
  <em>Had she made a mistake?</em>
</p><p>Her answer came a moment later when he kissed her back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. || secrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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<p>Her body hit the wall <em>hard,</em> slapping the air from her lungs and into his mouth.  He kissed like a demon; thrashing, wet, and ferocious, while she clawed at his neck leaving violent red trails down his sun-bronzed skin.</p>
<p>It was havoc; beautiful, wild havoc.</p>
<p>He tore the top of her swimsuit down to her waist before he fisted her breast enough to make her moan against his full lips.</p>
<p>He relished it and commanded another the same way.  Her back arched and she rucked against him as her foot climbed the wall behind her.</p>
<p>With a punishing grip on both her ass cheeks, Oliver hoisted her into the air and for the second time her back hit the wall while her nails embedded in his flesh.  It broke the skin and a speck of red appeared near the slope of his neck.  He hissed and pushed his weight into her, pressing her body against the wall while his finger touched the mark and his tongue licked across his bottom lip.</p>
<p>A breathy sigh.  A lingering stare.</p>
<p>“What?” Felicity said while a smile flirted with the corner of her lips, “don't tell me I don't get to play rough?”</p>
<p>Silently, he breathed. Deep, almost foreboding, until a smile raised up his mouth.<br/>“Vas a ser mi muerte.”<br/><em>You'll be the death of me.</em></p>
<p>He lifted her back from the wall and reactively Felicity wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.  He kissed her again, demanding, and his teeth caught her bottom lip.  Hints of her arousal reached his senses as he carried her toward the bed.  But, his restraint was a fraying thread and there was none of it left by the time he reached his desk.  He wanted her, hard, deep.  He wanted to own her body in every way she offered herself to him.</p>
<p>It was carnal, purely physical, but it was also utterly commanding, and when she rucked her sex against his chest, he was powerless to her wiles.</p>
<p>He dropped her rear onto the edge of his desk and tasted the hot moan that the slap on her ass cheeks pushed from her mouth.  Dragging his lips away, Oliver severed the kiss and forced himself to take a step back.  He wanted to see her, to study her body and enjoy the shifts in her expression as she hungered for more.</p>
<p>Her breasts were exposed, creamy and pert, and her nipples were erect and the hue of a rich Merlot.  He could almost taste them, imagine them cutting his tongue, and his cock swelled at the very prospect.  </p>
<p>Her shoulder still bore his mark, although it had begun to fade.  Selfishly, he wanted to leave more; to claim every part of her body.  Her breath was shallow, and he could barely see it expanding her chest.</p>
<p>She was perched on the desk, with her slender legs draped over the edge.  Her toes didn’t touch the floor beneath them.</p>
<p>“Do you want to take them off?” he huskily asked as he nodded down to the bottom of her swimsuit.  She blinked away from him and for a moment Oliver wondered if she finally understood the mistake she had made walking into this world.</p>
<p>But, a moment later her eyes returned to his, holding his gaze as she slipped off the damp swimsuit.  It dropped to the floor and she spread her legs slowly.  An enticing finger through her wetness dragged Oliver closer; one step and then another.  He was reeled in, intoxicated.</p>
<p>His lips hovered over her collarbone, daring himself not to touch and to deny himself while his cock throbbed behind his pants.  His warm and deliberate breath sparked an eruption of prickles down her skin; like cascading lava.  “What do you want?” he asked, his breath moving up her neck.</p>
<p>“To give you what you want,” Felicity whispered before she tipped her head back and exposed her neck to him; submissive and vulnerable.  <em>His.</em></p>
<p>Oliver’s nose skimmed her skin and inhaled the delicate notes of the sun lotion he found there, coconut and orchids enthralled his senses.  His clenched fist grabbed the end of her damp ponytail, so tightly that tiny droplets spilled down onto his varnished desk.  It took two full twists of his hand before his grip was tight, and when he tugged, it pulled her head back and stretched her neck taut.</p>
<p>Her neck was elongated and white and he could see her swallow a gasp beneath her skin.  He kissed up her jaw until he reached her ear.</p>
<p>“What do <em>I</em> want Megan?”<br/>“Control,” she answered him, thin and brittle, barely a breath left in her.<br/>Oliver released her hair and her head bobbed down chin to chest.  Softly his knuckles skimmed her cheek as she took a few languishing breaths.</p>
<p>His soft touch was mesmerizing and Felicity found her eyes dipping closed with the sensual and engulfing feeling before he gently lowered her onto her back, with his hands gliding down her sides and thumbs grazing her ribs.</p>
<p>The sound of his palm hitting the wood beside her made her eyes fling open to him shadowing above her and their eyes locked.  Then she felt his fingers, meticulous and slow, slicing through her heat.  Her body responded to every pass as though he knew exactly what pace and pressure she <em>wanted...needed.</em></p>
<p>Instinctively her hips lifted, seeking out a deeper friction of his fingers, but he pulled them away as a smile curled his lips.  “I thought I was in control mi ángel,” he teased and a muted sigh was her response.<br/>Her ache was deep and blinding, tearing the realities of the moment in her mind.  All she could think about was how to make his hands return.  <em>His.</em></p>
<p>“You are,” she begged as she lifted her lithe body onto her elbows.  She was barely holding onto Megan, but at that moment she wouldn't consider the very real possibility it wasn't Megan at all.</p>
<p>Everything in this world was dark.<br/><em>Was its darkness enough to taint her irrevocably?</em></p>
<p>“I want to have every part of you Megan, will you allow me that?”<br/>His words were gravelled, but spoken calmly, and his eyes burrowed into hers.<br/>She nodded, faintly, but it wasn't enough for him.</p>
<p>Oliver drove his beefy finger inside her to the last knuckle, and Felicity bucked against the sudden, imploding pressure deep within her.  Breathlessly she moaned, lost to the sensation of his middle finger plunged deep inside her.</p>
<p>“Tell me you want me to,” he whispered as he twisted the two finger inside her.  “Tell me you want me to have every part of you.”  His voice became needy, and yet he asked it without using fear.<br/>Her breathing was ragged, her eyes clouded with pleasure, but she needed to keep her wits about her; Oliver Queen didn't want a meek submissive, he would have already moulded her into that with dominance if that was what he truly wanted.</p>
<p><em>No,</em> he wanted something else.<br/>And she wanted to be that.</p>
<p><em>That</em> kept her here.</p>
<p>“Tell me what you want to do if I say yes,” she panted, her steely eyes matching his.<br/>A smile turned up his lips, it was neither fake or menacing, but pleased and oddly genuine.  Her estimation of him had not been wrong.</p>
<p>He wanted a challenge.</p>
<p>Lightly Oliver stroked his thumb around her clit, noting the way her cheeks hollowed when she breathed and the tiny quiver at one corner of her lips.<br/>He brushed his thumb through her damp folds as his finger coaxed arousal from her cushiony walls.  “I'm going to use my mouth and tongue to please you here,” he whispered, so quietly that she was forced to reactively lean closer to hear his hushed words.</p>
<p>“At the same time I'm going to use my fingers here,” he continued and as he spoke he twisted his hand and tapped his thumb against her puckered hole.</p>
<p>He paused and she bobbed her head softly.</p>
<p>“Would you like that?”  With his finger soaked in her excitement, Oliver traced the line of her mouth and she followed behind with her tongue, tasting herself while he watched intensely.</p>
<p>He could feel his cock throbbing and his restraint was barely holding.  He wanted her. Sense and reason were all but lost.  She was all he could think about.  Knowing that, Oliver knew that she should have left when she had the chance.</p>
<p>She was silent and every faint movement her body made on the desk was tortuous.  Her lips popped with a sigh.  Her tongue peeked between the blush red curtains of her full lips.  Her lashes fanned out as she blinked.  Her shoulders raised with a breath, and then another.  Her breasts twitched in a wick of air from the open patio doors.</p>
<p>And then, finally, she answered him.</p>
<p>One word.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>In an instant he was on his knees with his head between her legs.  She was succulent and wet and he had reached a fever pitch that pulsed his tongue inside her without restraint.  She tightened around him and cried out salaciously above him.  He was greedy and wild, like an untamed beast feasting on a meal he’d waited days for.</p>
<p>He can’t hold himself back.<br/>He doesn’t want to.</p>
<p>His tongue pulverises her sex, pumping in and out relentlessly, stopping briefly to lick up her velvety canal to her clit.  Every time he touched it, Oliver could feel the electricity leap off her body and the stifled moans she holds behind her ruby lips makes him suck harder and thrust deeper. </p>
<p>He wanted her to come, to spill her luscious spend on his tongue and across his lips, but she was holding herself back and forcing him to work for it.  </p>
<p>And he couldn't be more <em>fucking</em> turned on.</p>
<p>His fingers sliced between her folds, gathering her arousal and spreading it down towards her rear to lubricate her tight hole.  She moaned.  He pressed again, a devilish smile brushing against her sex when she offered up the same, wet moan.</p>
<p>He moved up to her clit; tight and sensitive, and even the slightest graze had her writhing.  As he sucked her deep he pushed a single digit into her back canal.  She squirmed and he thought he heard her gasp.  But she didn't pull away, and Oliver began to massage her ridged sides as she clenched around him.</p>
<p>The friction was new and for a few moments Felicity froze, startled when his finger broke through her tight ring.  It wasn't as though it was unexpected, he'd clearly told her his intentions and she was not immediately surprised.</p>
<p>But, moments later, as he gently stroked her passage and continued to suck on her clit, she felt a wave of something else.  It was indescribable, but to say that the pressure was intoxicating.</p>
<p>She adjusted, tilting her hips and rocking them around his fingers to discover the sensations that each new angle gave.  She could feel each stroke, slow and precise, before he began to thrust.</p>
<p>And then Oliver looked up.</p>
<p>His blue eyes were wild, hungry.  She couldn't see his mouth as he continued to devour her, but she would have sworn he was smiling.  Then, as he watched her, he added a second finger that was glossed in her juices.</p>
<p>That time she gasped so loudly that it came out almost like a scream, but her face remained delirious with pleasure.  Sweat glistened near her hairline, her cheeks blushed brightly, her perfect breasts bounced with uneven, ragged breaths.</p>
<p>But one thing was missing.</p>
<p>He tore his mouth away from her sex for just a moment.  “Touch yourself mi ángel,” he begged and one of her hands moved immediately to her breast while he returned his mouth to her sex.</p>
<p>Bracing herself on one hand, Felicity teased and squeezed under the crescent of her breast while her thumb moved across her nipple.  Oliver timed each pump of his fingers, deep within her ass, with how fast her hand moved, while he kept sucking and licking her clit.  </p>
<p>The cacophony of pleasure was almost unnerving as flashes of heat pulsated through Felicity’s core.  For a lucid second she understood that his fingers were fucking her back hole, his tongue fucking her front, and her own hand was heightening the pleasure by sharply pinching her nipples.</p>
<p>In that dizzying and transient fog, Felicity came.  Vivid and feral she forced his tongue deeper while she strangled herself around his fingers.</p>
<p>Hazy and near breathless, she almost fell from the desk, and would have if Oliver hadn't caught her at the waist.  Rising to her level, Oliver kissed her and once again she tasted herself.  It was thicker, creamier, and she hummed, unabashedly, at the taste.</p>
<p>Felicity was limp and still quivering through the spasms of her orgasm when Oliver lifted her off the desk and carried her the rest of the way to the bed.  She turned into herself when she felt the blankets encasing her and watched as Oliver walked into the bathroom.</p>
<p>She heard the tap start and then stop 30 seconds later.  Returning from the bathroom, Oliver found Felicity on her knees on his bed.  She still wore the bright scarlet of arousal down between her breasts and wavy strands of her hair were glued to her temples.</p>
<p>Oliver was still dressed, and when he walked closer to her, Felicity reached out to him, or specifically, his pants.<br/>“Your turn,” she breathed and it came as a raspy whisper.<br/>He stroked her head and cupped her cheek.  “You are worn out; too much,” he answered her, almost cooing and she again noticed how the years had given him the edges of an accent that had stripped away much of his American one.<br/>She pulled him roughly towards her.  “I get to say when it's too much.”</p>
<p>Without another word, she had unbuckled his belt and fly and both were dropped to his ankles.  She took his cock with a firm grip and it pinched down his shaft as his erection pulsed.  He was already hard, he had been from the moment she’d spread her legs on his desk, but instantly his erection became rigid and throbbing in her hand.</p>
<p>She traced the head around her lips and his pre cum left a shine like lip gloss on her puckered mouth.  But, even at his height, the angle was an impossible one and Felicity moved fluidly to the floor where she knelt in front of him with her back to the bed.</p>
<p>Felicity circled her lips with his head again as Oliver took the end of her hair in his hand.  Judiciously, he pressed his cock to her glossy lips and she expectantly opened her mouth, looking at him the whole time with vividly carnivorous eyes.  He surged forward, burying his member in her inviting mouth.  She choked a little as she took his length and wearily he started to ease back, believing it too much.  But, her hands responsively grasped at his bare ass cheeks and guided him back.  Taking her hint, and watching the flints of pale blue in her eyes, Oliver buried himself to the hilt in her mouth.</p>
<p>He stilled there, giving her a chance to retreat, but she didn’t pull back and Oliver felt the slow, teasing brush of her tongue as she glided it around his ridge while her cheeks hollowed and sucked inwards, creating a delicious vacuum around his cock.</p>
<p>With almost arduously slow breaths, Oliver forced himself to stay still, forced himself to bathe in nothing more than the feel of his tip against her throat and her full, pouted lips around his base.  The muscles down his calves trembled and his jaw tightened, but he stayed motionless, just allowing each sensation to trickle down his shaft.</p>
<p>With one hand holding tightly to her hair, the other softly traced the lines of her face; her powdery soft skin, her hollowed cheeks, her full lips, and the top of her slender throat.<br/>“Tell me how,” he breathed, ignoring his own desires as they ached through his limbs.  “Slow and soft?” Oliver asked, and with a hinted smile that bounced around her bright eyes Felicity shook her head.  “Long but gentle?”<br/>Her nails dug like daggers into the round of his ass, making him hiss through barely parted lips.<br/>“Deep and hard?” <br/>She nodded as she puffed out her cheeks and then hollowed them a second time, an act which beat his shaft like a drum.</p>
<p>After that, Oliver fell over to his desires and dragged his cock slowly out of her mouth, watching intently as it passed through her wet lips.  Almost at the tip, he paused to cup her face before he rucked himself forward, deep and fast.</p>
<p>Her eyes grew wide but demanding and he surged forward again, thrusting deep into the warm, wetness of her mouth.  Excitement took him as he could feel his cock hitting the back of her throat.</p>
<p>Her nails raked down the back of his thighs, punishingly deep and he knew he would wear marks of them afterwards.  That thought made him wild and he was soon thrusting into her mouth so deeply that her head had become embedded into the edge of mattress.</p>
<p>A wave of ecstasy gripped his body as his legs stiffened and then he finished so hard that his knees buckled for a second and his body slumped over her, with his hands gripping the mattress.</p>
<p>He felt the ribbons explode into her mouth and as he looked down she began milking him with deliberately slow sucks, all while she kept her eyes locked on his.</p>
<p>
  <em>The death of him.</em>
</p>
<p>He would fucking welcome death in that case.</p>
<p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p>
<p>Exhausted, the two of them fell asleep as the afternoon passed into the beginnings of evening.  Felicity awoke, and was not surprised to see Oliver's side of the bed empty.  With the sheet covering her chest, she sat up and looked around the room, which was dim with the fading light of the day. </p>
<p>Oliver was sitting, shirtless, in a chair he'd turned a little towards the glass doors.  He appeared to be watching the haze of the late afternoon sky turn to burnt orange and strokes of pink.</p>
<p>She slipped out from his side of the bed and found his cigarettes and lighter sitting on the nightstand.  Collecting one white stick and the brushed chrome lighter, Felicity then carried them to him.  She swished her hips naturally as she walked and tiny pricks of dull pain resonated across her core like she'd been working out for days.</p>
<p>She supposed that wasn't necessarily wrong.</p>
<p>He turned as she approached.  His eyes were soft, without the usual turmoil, and his lips said little of his emotions, but she found them comforting to look at all the same.  Wordlessly she handed him both the cigarette and the lighter.</p>
<p>Oliver fed the cigarette into his lips and then light it on the first try.  He took his first drag before he settled back into the chair and began toying with the flip back cap of the lighter.</p>
<p>“What now?” Felicity asked.  She stood close enough to him to see he was wearing boxer briefs and for her fingers to brush against his knee.  “They'll know you didn't hit me.”</p>
<p>She worried he might be thinking the same thing, and she waited, fearful, that he might seek to rectify it.  It would certainly be within his sheer size and capabilities to do so, and there would be little she could do about it.</p>
<p>With his free hand, Oliver guided her to stand between his legs.  He leaned as close as he dared with the lit cigarette in his mouth before he plucked it from between his lips and exhaled.  The smoke dissipated quickly, but not before its cloudy heat brushed against the outer lips of her sex.</p>
<p>As the last tendrils of smoke disappeared from Oliver's mouth, he leaned in another inch and kissed her right on her nether lips, dipping his warm tongue between her folds.</p>
<p>“Let me worry about that,” he soothed as his lips nudged her sex.  “I don't want to hurt you.”</p>
<p>She found comfort in that, although she knew that sometimes the <em>wants</em> had to relinquish to the <em>needs.</em>  Should he ever need to hurt her, <em>would he?</em></p>
<p>She watched as a small movement made him reactively wince, as though the same hurt a muscle near his shoulder.  But, he carried on irrespective.<br/>“What did you say before in Spanish?” Felicity asked.<br/>“Vas a ser mi muerte,” he repeated and she nodded.  He inhaled his cigarette again, and breathed most of it out the same way, making her sex quiver with the cloudy warmth.  <br/>“You'd be the death of me,” Oliver answered with a stiff chuckle as the last puff of smoke spiralled from his lips.<br/>“Do you believe that?”<br/>He looked up, intensity wrapped around his wide pupils.  “Should I?”</p>
<p>He winced again with a pain that resonated down his shoulder.  It was an old injury, a remnant of a gun shot wound from his days as a detective.  He never spoke about it, and the occasional pain from the scarred tissue and damaged tendons had become almost second nature to him.</p>
<p>But, he watched as Felicity moved around the back of his chair until she was out of sight, and then he felt her warm hands touch his bare shoulder.  Her small fingers precisely found the spot and Oliver sighed at the relief he instantly felt.</p>
<p>“You don't sleep much,” she remarked as her fingers continued to loosen the tight knot in his shoulder.<br/>“No,” he breathed as his eyes gently closed.<br/>“Why not?”<br/>“Do you dream?”</p>
<p>Her hands rubbed over his smooth shoulder to find a small wound of puckered skin, no larger than a small coin.  “Everybody does,” she replied softly and his head tipped towards his opposite shoulder to expose more of his shoulder to her enchanting fingers<br/>He was breathing deep and steady.<br/>“None of mine are good,” he answered her question after a moment's pause.</p>
<p>She leaned close and kissed the taut cords of his neck.<br/>“I didn't think Cartél lieutenants had consciences,” she whispered.  He was vulnerable in that moment, and for a few wild seconds, Felicity considered how she could take advantage of that if she needed to.  How had the other girls not taken their revenge on the men so cruel to them? They too must have moments of vulnerability that could be exploited.</p>
<p>A moment to nick an artery.<br/>Drive something into a temple.<br/>Pull a trigger.<br/>Just a moment...</p>
<p>“They don't,” Oliver replied, snatching Felicity from her thoughts.<br/>“Perhaps it's secrets then,” she said; her fingertips gliding over his skin and paying special attention to the scar.<br/>He stopped her hand with his own and, holding it, he walked her back around to the front of the chair. His one hand slalomed down her naked body, watching the prickles erupt in his wake, while his other hand held the cigarette to his mouth.  He took a inhale and then exhaled it between her legs, making Felicity moan at the sensation that passed over her sex.<br/>“Maybe you’re right,” he finally spoke before he stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray nearby.</p>
<p>“What secrets do you have?” Felicity questioned as she guided his hand back up her body.  Playing a part she had become an expert at.<br/>“On the bed Megan,” Oliver instructed.  His words were not harsh or ordered but it was also not a question.<br/>“Are you fucking me to make me stop asking questions you find uncomfortable?” she asked with a hitched brow and focused eyes.</p>
<p>He looked at her without blinking away.  Most men would have lied.  He didn't.<br/>“Yes.” Breathy, rasped.  “Are you okay with that?”</p>
<p>His hands traced up the curve of her ass, stopping at the top.<br/>“Do I have a choice?” she enquired, whispering.<br/>He stood up and she didn't fall back, fighting her own inclination to.  He was close; there was no space between them.<br/>“Of course,” he answered, intimate and soft.  </p>
<p>Felicity lifted her body up his, brushing her lips over his chin, but she pulled away before she reached his mouth.</p>
<p>Wordlessly she fell a few steps back before she turned and walked on the balls of her feet to the bed.  When she reached it, she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled provocatively before she crawled onto the bed, on her hands and knees.</p>
<p>Oliver strode over to the bed and even though his hands were large and strong, he touched her delicately, shaping the sides of her body before he held her hips.  He leaned over and kissed her ass cheeks.  One then the other.</p>
<p>A hand sneaked between her legs and he gently began playing with her clit.  The sudden touch made her jolt, but he stilled her with the hand left on her waist.</p>
<p>“Tell me a secret Megan.”  His words were measured but she could hear a gravelled fringe on them.  He pushed a finger inside her sex and she breathed out a soft moan.<br/>“I don't have any,” she lied as he stroked her cushioned walls.</p>
<p>He added a second digit, pumping them slowly until they were wet with her desire.  “We all have secrets,” he spoke as he kissed up her spine.</p>
<p>She hummed, feeling her body begin to tremor, ready and open to him. Craving what he had; what she knew was coming.</p>
<p>He pulled his cock free from his boxer briefs and wanked it two short pulls before he used his hand to guide it to her soaked entrance.</p>
<p>“So what's yours?” she asked, with short, uneven breaths.<br/>He surged forward, filling her deeply to the hilt, and pushing her body onto her elbows with the force.  She cried out in a sweet, aching bliss as Oliver kissed her between the shoulder blades.</p>
<p>“My secret is, I wasn't always this bad,” he whispered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <strong>thank you to @Olida_magda for this amazing fan art </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>❤</strong>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. || chess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: abusive relationship<br/>Please note there is a portion of this chapter that might trigger some.  It deals with the psychological and emotional effects of an abusive relationship.  I will place a warning directly before the scene, and note when the same is finished.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>Felicity wasn’t surprised when she woke up alone in the bed the next morning, it hadn’t even been a week, but she had come to expect it and strangely this world now felt like her new normal. That alone should have scared her, but Felicity was fixated and she had left much of her reason in Starling a year ago when this had all begun.<br/>
 <br/>
As she moved in the crisp cotton sheets, there was no escaping the dull ache between her legs. Last night the intensity between them hit new dizzying heights, they didn’t speak after the conversation by the arm chair and Felicity had decided against pushing him further for information she didn’t need.<br/>
 <br/>
It didn’t matter to her what had turned a decorated Detective, doting older brother, and handsome <em>Golden Boy</em> son, into what he was now; a dark enigma wrapped in a thousand secrets and deadly intent. Oliver Queen could take his secrets to his grave for all she cared.<br/>
 <br/>
She rolled instinctively towards Oliver’s side of the bed, reactively tracking the scent of him left behind on his pillow, before her eyes fell onto a small card with her name written in black ink sitting braced against a vase with a single half bloomed red rose sitting in it.<br/>
 <br/>
Felicity reached it and held it closed in her hand for a few moments before she opened it, unsure what she would find.<br/>
 <br/>
<em><strong>I will pick you up at 2pm. Please dress comfortably.</strong></em><br/>
<br/>
<em><strong>Gloria will be attending you at 10. Say nothing to her about last night but do as she asks.</strong></em><br/>
 <br/>
She left the read note on her nightstand before she slid out of bed and checked the time, a little after 8am. At least she could shower before Gloria intruded.<br/>
 <br/>
She started the shower and waited for the room to fill with steam before she stepped into it. The heated water hit like a thousand knives, but she relished the feeling, noting the way it sparked her senses and lit her skin with a veil of prickles. There was a sense of electricity in it; electricity that made her feel alive. Felicity let her hands map slowly down her body, touching briefly between her legs and an ache resonated through her core and down the insides of her thighs; just in case she had forgotten.<br/>
 <br/>
A smile found it's way to her expression as she lingered there a little longer, wordlessly mapping out the areas where she could still <em>feel</em> him on her skin. The pain, if you could call it that, had subsided, replaced instead with a slow, pleasurable ache – almost longing, knowing how it all could feel and craving that sensation.<br/>
 <br/>
Megan liked it rough.<br/>
But the line between Megan and Felicity was less clearer now, it had blurred and become almost unperceivable.<br/>
 <br/>
She couldn't help but marvel at the way he already seemed to know her body, her limits, and how every moment they were together he enjoyed testing them; taking her right to them, but never once pushing her over the edge into pain.<br/>
 <br/>
Last night he had pushed himself so deep that she had felt it touching her insides, stealing her breath and taking over every muscle and thought process she had. He’d moved like a locomotive and even after he’d spilled himself into her, he hadn’t slowed as though a trance had taken him.<br/>
 <br/>
Her pleasure had still been paramount and she had finished with her face buried in the mattress and her thighs soaked with pleasure. But, he'd maintained distance for the rest of the night and after he’d brought her something to eat shortly after, he’d left with a cool kiss on her forehead and come back in the early hours of the morning, dank with a smell of menthol cigarettes and beer, a different scent on him than she was used it, and the tiny voice in the back of her head that she seldom listened to anymore, told her it wasn't from him, but rather a leached scent from someone else.<br/>
 <br/>
Like satin, decadent and aromatic bubbles cascaded down her skin as she absently lathered the same across her body, while thoughts bombarded her consciousness; one in particular repeated despite Felicity trying to ignore it – there wasn't a part of her body he hadn't touched.<br/>
 <br/>
And yet, they were strangers.<br/>
 <br/>
Strangers with secrets.</p><p><br/>
 <br/>
<strong>.|.</strong></p><p> <br/>
Dressed in jeans and a cotton tank, Felicity worked a comb through her damp locks in the bathroom when there was a knock on the bedroom door. Tentatively she walked into the bedroom with her eyes locked on the door handle, as though she expected it to move. It didn't.<br/>
 <br/>
“Who is it?” Felicity asked through the door.<br/>
“It’s us,” she heard Gabriella reply.<br/>
Felicity unlocked the door and stepped it back. Expecting all of them, Felicity was surprised when it was just Gabriella, Carmen, and Adriana; Rosa and Annika weren't with them.<br/>
 <br/>
“Are you okay, we heard what happened, did he...,” Carmen started.<br/>
Unintendedly brusque, Felicity interrupted her. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” foolish notion she had held that perhaps these girls were better than their male counterparts. She wouldn't make that mistake again. Whether or not she could trust the others was irrelevant, Felicity had decided, it would simply be better to not trust anyone; not Oliver, not Carmen, <em>no one.</em><br/>
 <br/>
Gabriella wasn't having any of Felicity's offhanded answer, and her concern was laced with frustration. “Why would you leave? You can’t just wander around here.”<br/>
While her tone was not harsh, it reminded Felicity of a scolding, and for a fleeting moment she heard herself scolding Alena a few years back for leaving a hack open ended, with the possibility of a trace back – a rookie mistake.<br/>
“I know,” Felicity huffed; her mistake hadn't been forgetting that golden rule.<br/>
“Ángel could have hurt you,” Carmen added, and there was something in her tone that insinuated she knew that <em>first hand.</em><br/>
Still, Felicity had nothing more to add. “I know,” she repeated, her voice stepping up a notch.<br/>
Gabriella crossed her arms over her chest. “So why would you?” she demanded.<br/>
 <br/>
And Felicity snapped. “Because, she told me to,” she bite back angrily as she pointed her eyes directly at Adriana, who had been silent. “She told me Oliver was waiting for me, she told me to leave, that's why.”<br/>
Felicity took a breath, deep and frustrated when the words were finally out, only that moment of frustration was soon replaced with regret when she saw just how afraid Adriana looked.<br/>
 <br/>
“Adriana?” Carmen asked, her voice was brittle but she didn't seem surprised.<br/>
“I didn’t know what he was going to do, I swear,” Adriana replied, hugging her arms tightly around her waist.<br/>
“How could you?” Gabriella sighed, disappointment and disgust lacing her every word. “We don’t do that. We only have each other.”<br/>
“I'm sorry,” Adriana repeated, but her eyes were hollow, her words almost void.<br/>
It wasn't that Felicity didn't believe them, but there was something behind them... something she didn't quite understand. Something she couldn't quantify or explain; it wasn't callous or malice, but... resignation.<br/>
 <br/>
“You should go,” Carmen said coldly under her breath. It was clear that Adriana's act went beyond the boarders of Felicity, it was an insult to them all.<br/>
Adriana left without another word and Felicity's guilt slumped her shoulders moments later.<br/>
 <br/>
“You didn't tell Oliver, did you?” Gabriella asked, her tone suggesting she already knew the answer. Felicity didn't want to imagine what the inference was, but it sounded like Adriana would have fared far worse if Oliver had known, and made it known to the others.<br/>
“No,” Felicity replied simply.<br/>
“Why not?”<br/>
It was a question Felicity should have expected, but she had no answer for it. <em>Foolishness? misplaced comradery?</em> Both – no neither, her reasons didn't really seem to matter.<br/>
 <br/>
“Girls stick together,” she remarked with a soft shrug.<br/>
Perhaps she still hoped that might be the case.<br/>
 <br/>
But, before anything further could be said, Gloria announced herself with a sharp knock and a demand to open the door; “she didn't have all day.”</p><p><br/>
<strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Felicity felt the icy stare of the notorious matriarch, but collected and focused, she didn't react to it.  There was a man with her, older with grey eyes and thin lips.</p><p>He never spoke, barely even looked at her, as Gloria escorted Felicity to the arm chair and made her sit down.</p><p>Going against the very fabric of Felicity's nature, she didn't fight Gloria, but neither did she shrink back from the vapid woman.</p><p>A cotton swab damp with something that smelled like a cleaning agent was dabbed against her arm, where her implant sat.  Moments later, Felicity felt the pinch of an injection, but the sting was fleeting and the numbness spread in both directions from the site.</p><p>She caught a glimpse of the scalpel as it reflected the light from the nearby window, but, breathing deeply and systematically, Felicity kept her focus elsewhere as the knife cut into her arm.</p><p>It felt like a tug on her skin, with a slight burning sensation spreading down from it, but a few moments later the wound was dressed and the older man stripped off his latex gloves with a slapping sound that made Felicity uncomfortable, like he enjoyed his job far too much.</p><p>He moved slowly around the other side of her body, and as best she could, Felicity watched him.  The next jab made her wince, but she hid it as best she could from her expression.  There had been no consent requested and certainly none given, a fact which seemed to frame this world perfectly.</p><p>They took what they wanted.<br/>
And did what they wanted.</p><p>“And the exam?” the older man asked, his tone drawing a shiver down Felicity's spine.<br/>
“Apparently not,” Gloria intimated as she smirked down at Felicity.  “Oliver requested she be left unchecked.”</p><p>Felicity glanced across to the man who busy discarding the few bloody cotton balls in the trash.  His mannerisms suggested he was disappointed by there being no "exam".  And while Felicity wasn't categorically sure she knew what this exam entailed, her gut told her she should be grateful to be skipping it.</p><p>Gloria turned her attention to the man and it became apparent he had served his purpose and she no longer cared for his company as she gestured him to leave with a flick of her hand.</p><p>“The good doctor will be back to give you another shot in 12 weeks, if you're still around,” Gloria remarked coolly.  “Girlfriends don't get pregnant. It won't make him love you. It won't make him keep you.”</p><p>She leaned in close and the floral notes of her perfume strangled Felicity's senses.<br/>
“If you think it will change him, it won't. Don't forget that you are just his whore.”</p><p>“I'm just here to suck his cock and keep my cunt wet,” Felicity parroted back the woman's earlier, callous words.</p><p>Gloria smiled.  “You're already smarter than the other whores,” she laughed cruelly.</p><p>She turned on her designer heels and walked briskly to the door.  “Especially that pathetic whore my son amuses himself with,” she added as she stood in the doorway.</p><p>While Ángel had two girlfriends, Felicity felt sure Gloria was referring to Adriana.</p><p>The broken one.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>tw: abusive relationship</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>The following contains an insight into the psychological, physical, and emotion aftermath of an abusive relationship.  This may be difficult or triggering for some to read, so please proceed with caution, or skip this portion if the subject matter is damaging to you.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
“Clean yourself up.”<br/>
His words were cold, without feeling or emotion and she watched him silently as he walked, naked across her room.  The sight of his naked body drew a small sigh from her lips.    Attentively she swept her tongue across the same to the familiar taste of blood.</p><p>He wanted so much from her.<br/>
She'd given him everything.</p><p>His good little <em>sancha.</em></p><p>His hands had left red grazes on her wrists and she could feel the ache of the bites he'd left on her chest.</p><p>But it was okay.<br/>
She loved him.</p><p>It was okay.</p><p>He looked at her as he fed his pants back on.  She smiled, hoping he might offer her the same back.  He didn't.</p><p>But it was okay.<br/>
She could smile for both of them.</p><p>She winced as she sat up in the bed.  It hurt more than usual.</p><p>But it was okay.</p><p>He must have seen her body shiver as her feet brushed the cool tiled floor.</p><p>“You like it rough,” he remarked, a smile turned up the tips of his full lips.  His honey eyes drew her attention and she nodded slowly.</p><p>She wasn't sure what she liked anymore.</p><p>But it was okay.</p><p>She could like whatever he liked.</p><p>Her knuckles were grazed; she didn't remember how.</p><p>Her scalp hurt; he'd twisted her hair tightly around his fist.</p><p>Idly she touched it where it throbbed near her crown.</p><p>It was okay.</p><p>Her small feet shuffled across the room; it was small, barely furnished and it only got the late afternoon sun, but it was okay.  She was okay.</p><p>“Maybe we can go out tonight?” she asked with a shaky voice as she trailed her sheet along behind her.</p><p>He was buttoning his shirt when she'd asked and he paused before moving onto the next.  She waited quietly for an answer, ignoring the pain thumping from between her legs.</p><p>It was okay.<br/>
She was his good pet.</p><p>His hand came up to her face and reactively Adriana recoiled, holding her breath until she realised it was a gentle touch against her cheek.</p><p>She sighed, content.</p><p>“You know she’s prettier than you,” Ángel said softly and her eyes fluttered open.  She wasn't surprised by his words, but they stung all the same.  “You want the best for me don’t you?”</p><p>She nodded obediently.<br/>
“That’s not you Adriana.”  His voice was laced with disappointment and the smile she had once worn shrunk behind quivering lips.  “You’ve lost weight, you're too thin,” he sighed as he gently brushed his fingers through her hair.<br/>
“Last month you said I was getting too big,” she replied quietly as her hands shook and her teeth bit the inside of her cheeks.</p><p>“Adriana, you look terrible.”  His words were cruel but he wore sadness in his eyes.<br/>
She swallowed the specks of blood in her salvia. <br/>
“I can try harder,” she whimpered.<br/>
“Sssh I know baby.”</p><p>It was okay.</p><p>She sobbed as his thumb brushed away a tear.  She craved that affection and yet it tore her to shreds on the inside.</p><p>But, it was okay.</p><p>“I did what you asked,” she whispered, feeling the hot tears streaming down her face.  He never brushed another one away.</p><p>He touched the ends of her dark hair.<br/>
“Perhaps you should change this, Megan is prettier than you too,” he remarked softly, regrettably.<br/>
“You want me to dye my hair for you?” Adriana asked, <em>begged.</em></p><p>His eyes were cold; empty of affection.  “Would you?”<br/>
His question demanded an answer, validation of his control over her.<br/>
“You know I would,” she agreed.<br/>
He sighed before he finished buttoning his shirt.  The silence was palpable and Adriana took each breath as quietly as she could.</p><p>“No, I don’t know that yet,” Ángel said coldly.<br/>
“I love you,” she pleaded.</p><p>It was okay.<br/>
She could love enough for both of them.</p><p>He smiled. It wasn't warm. It wasn't cold.  It would be enough.</p><p>“I have someone for you to entertain tonight,” he remarked as he stepped back from her<br/>
Her lips pinched as they shook.  “Please, I don’t want to.”<br/>
“You want to disappointment me?”<br/>
She shook her head. <em>Never.</em> “Couldn't she do it tonight?” she asked wearily.</p><p>
  <em>She never did.</em>
</p><p>“I told you, she’s too pretty to share,” Ángel commented with a small shake of his head.  “Be a good girl and I’ll take you out tomorrow.”<br/>
“You promise?”<br/>
“Of course.”</p><p>In her heart, Adriana knew he was lying.<br/>
But it was okay.</p><p>She needed to believe it was true.</p><p>So she did.</p><p>
  <strong>tw: end</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Oliver arrived back earlier than he’d instructed and found Felicity brushing back her hair in the bathroom mirror.  His spirits seemed high and she smiled as she glanced over her shoulder when he approached.  Her response to him was immediate, instinctive.</p><p>“Sorry,” she quickly said as she sat the brush down on the vanity.  She hadn’t fixed her makeup and she was dressed in jeans and a black tank top under a woven hoodie; Megan’s clothes.  “I won’t take long.”<br/>
Reactively her tongue fretted with her lips as Oliver walked closer.</p><p>His powdery eyes wore a smile, but he didn’t say a word until his arms were around her waist, a small gesture that would feel at home in any relationship… but this wasn’t just any relationship.  </p><p>“You look beautiful.” The first words he spoke were kind and genuine, and the smile in his eyes matched the sentiment.<br/>
His hands glided slowly up her arms, but stopped when it reached just below her shoulder and she winced.  For a moment his expression wore worry, until he realised the reason for her discomfort and his worry changed to regret.</p><p>“I'm sorry you had to have that done.”  Oliver spoke softly as he peeled off her jacket, and she simply let him.  A small white bandage covered the cut and while it no longer hurt beyond a small twinge of pain when he grazed his hand over it, the fact Felicity had allowed it brought a glassy, unspent tear to her eye.</p><p><em>How easy it was to lose yourself in this world... to be who you needed to be?</em><br/>
Perhaps that was true of more than just her.</p><p>“It's all part of it,” Felicity answered coolly.<br/>
Something in her icy words struck Oliver.<br/>
“Am I all part of it?” Oliver asked without accusation or anger.<br/>
A faint smile lifted her lips. “It's all part of being with you,” she whispered as she pressed her sift body against the plank of his chest.<br/>
<em>Lies upon lies.</em><br/>
<em>Who knew what the truth was anymore.</em></p><p>“You barely know me and I barely know you,” he breathed, noting the way she looked away before she answered him.<br/>
“What do you want to know?” Felicity asked.  She had prepared for this; to answer the questions about Megan's crafted life... each figment, every lie.</p><p>His first question came with ease.  “Where did you grow up?”<br/>
He already knew the answer; but Oliver wasn't interested in the words that came from her mouth but rather every tiny facial expression she gave as she answered him.</p><p>She smiled, faintly, abstractly.  “Florida. Near Orlando.”<br/>
His second question came with very little pause.  “Any siblings?”<br/>
Her smile grew.  “Don't I get to ask a question now?”<br/>
Oliver took her hand and walked her back into the room where the midday sun bathed the bed in warmth.</p><p>He kissed her near the foot of the bed, slow and amorous, tasting and enjoying her swish of lip gloss.<br/>
“Starling City,” he whispered as he slowly broke off the kiss.  “Siblings?” he asked a second time.<br/>
“None,” she answered while her fingers coaxed a smile from his lips as they stroked down his jaw.  He stopped her hands on his cheeks.</p><p>“Same question,” she breathed.<br/>
“One sister,” he answered truthfully.<br/>
Felicity was watching his eyes as he answered but they gave nothing away.</p><p>These questions settled in her comfort zone, whether she gave truthful answers or not, Oliver needed her uncomfortable... years of training had taught him that much.</p><p>It was like a game of chess, it all started with inconsequential moves; a pawn, a sacrifice, until the ‘Endgame’ where a series of moves and deceit broke down one of the player's games, leaving them open and unguarded.</p><p>“First boyfriend?” he asked.<br/>
Felicity's demeanour flinched, but she answered after only a short pause.  “Cooper,” she answered.  It was the truth, which didn't seem to matter; she was confident there was no way Oliver could use that information.</p><p>But, it wasn't information Oliver was after.  Her answers were irrelevant, her reactions to each question weren't though.</p><p>Her skin was powdery and dry, her eyes had stayed with him through the answer.  <em>Whoever Cooper was, he was real,</em> Oliver decided.<br/>
“Was he the first one to fuck you?” Oliver asked immediately after she answered.  He chose his words purposefully blunt. Bluntness threw people off and took them back.  Bluntness, gave way to reactions.  He needed reactions.</p><p>She swallowed, hesitated, but answered.  “Yes.  But that was two questions.”<br/>
Oliver smiled.  “You're right.”</p><p>He walked away from her and poured himself a drink.  “Ask your questions Megan.”<br/>
“When was the last time you saw your family?” Felicity asked.</p><p>He stayed still like a statue before he took the tumbler to his lips and sucked back the drink.  “Years.”<br/>
He turned to her, and uneasy space between them.  “When was the first time he had sex with you?”<br/>
“Senior year in College,” she answered immediately.  <em>But, that wasn't right, Megan had dropped out before finishing ...</em> she laughed softly, “I mean High School.”</p><p>He heard it, but acted like he didn't.  A step closer. “How did he fuck you Megan?” he asked darkly.<br/>
“Missionary, pretty standard really,” she answered with her lips tight and her eyes focused.<br/>
His stare was intense and she felt a veil of sweet across her forehead.</p><p>“Did you enjoy it with him?”<br/>
“It was fine.”<br/>
“Tell me how fine it was, tell me how he had sex with you.”<br/>
<em>He needed her uncomfortable to make a mistake.</em><br/>
By the time he’d finished talking, he was standing an inch or two from her.  He expected her to step back, but she didn't.</p><p>She swallowed and blinked up at him.  “It's my turn.  Why did you leave Starling City?”<br/>
He stayed with his feet anchored to the floor and his eyes tethered to her.  “I had to.”</p><p>He didn’t blink.<br/>
She did.</p><p>“Did you love him?”<br/>
“Yes.” A breath and a raised brow... but no hesitation.  “Why did you have to?”<br/>
“You know who I am,” he whispered darkly.<br/>
“Do I?” she spoke, barely heard.<br/>
“That's two questions.”<br/>
He blinked.<br/>
“You didn't answer my first one.”</p><p>“Did he love you?”  His voice was raspy and brittle.<br/>
“You'd have to ask him.  Who are you Oliver?”</p><p> “A bad person.”  A breath, laboured and deep.  “What was Cooper's last name?”<br/>
Felicity blinked.</p><p>Once.  Twice.<br/>
Folded her lips inward.</p><p>She hadn't given him a life.<br/>
She couldn't give Oliver a name.</p><p>“Why does it matter?” she laughed softly as her fingers slipped under his Henley.  “It was over in a few minutes, it was sloppy, and I didn't even come.”</p><p>A pause, their breathing intertwined.<br/>
“Speaking of which,” she hummed as she pressed her nails into his chest.  “Why don't you fuck me now?  Any way you want.  I can pretend to be in High School again for a do-over.”  Felicity's tailored words were smoky and whispered, pulling him instinctively closer.</p><p>“Are you fucking me to make me stop asking questions you find uncomfortable?” he asked, repeating her words back to her from the previous night.<br/>
“Yes,” she breathed, smiling. “Is that alright?”</p><p>She stepped back and lifted her top from her body, exposing her naked stomach and a delicate ivory lace bra.</p><p>“How about my ass?” Felicity hummed as she peeled down her jeans.  She needed the questions to stop until she had time to plant more of Megan's fictitious life in case Oliver went searching.  She needed to buy herself some time.  “I've seen the way you look at me when I turn around,” she added, purring.</p><p>As she spoke, Felicity turned her back to him and brushed her fingers over the gauzy panties that barely covered her rear.</p><p>“Have you ever had anal sex before?” Oliver asked as his fingertips brushed across the indentations of her lower back.<br/>
“No. You’d be my first,” she answered meekly; an act to pull him closer.<br/>
His hand palmed her firm rear as he kissed up the side of her neck, stopping just below her ear.  “You're not ready.”<br/>
She breathed, steady but shallow.  “How do you get ready then?”<br/>
He looked down at his platinum watch.  “First we shop.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
There wasn't any talking during the drive and Felicity found herself absently relaxing into the  comfortable leather seats as she glanced out the window at the world moving by while her teeth grazed over her bottom lip.</p><p>She didn't realise such a tiny, absent action had caught Oliver's attention; but it had.</p><p>There was something idle about the way her teeth tracked over her bottom lip, it was a habit and habits always spoke more about a person than their words ever could.</p><p>His suspicions about her still lingered in the back of his mind.  While she had done nothing to trigger them, Oliver couldn't shake the sense that Megan wasn't entirely who she said she was.  He had spent five days with her.  He knew her body intimately; <em>and yet…</em></p><p>Part of him wondered if a rival gang had sent her in, hoping to gain information or the like; but nothing about her struck him as a soldier in this war, a higher station he could believe... but then he would know her.</p><p>He made it his business to know people.</p><p>Perhaps she was a rogue agent looking to make a name for herself with a high profile collar, but nothing about her struck him as trained; he made sudden movements and her reactions were not built around training and focus. She acted on instinct, like anyone would.</p><p>She was no one.</p><p><em>And yet...</em> a niggle in the back of Oliver's head told him nothing could be further from the truth.</p><p>Oliver turned down a side street and the landscape changed to small houses and boarded up shops.  Felicity's eyes wandered down the worn roads that branched off from the one they travelled as the houses got smaller and the streets got more forgotten.</p><p>Each turn he made took them deeper into crowded neighbourhoods.  Parks were dry and empty and broken swings hung on rusty chains outside dilapidated homes, until finally Oliver pulled his expensive car over to the kerb and stopped the engine.</p><p>“Stay with the car, you’ll have nothing to worry about,” Oliver instructed before he leaned over and brushed his hand up her thigh.  Even through her jeans he could feel her shudder.  “Stay in the car.”</p><p>A plea; not an order.</p><p>Oliver waited until she acknowledged him with a nod before he stepped out of the car and armed it.  A few kids scattered on the other side of the street and the wind shook through the leaves of the trees nearby as Oliver straightened his leather jacket and walked decisively up to the front door of a faded-green house.</p><p>Felicity watched him knock, just the once, and then the door opened and he stepped inside.</p><p>When the door closed with Oliver on the other side of it, Felicity felt her throat tighten with every breath she took.</p><p>She saw faces look out from behind curtains and she noted when people crossed the street to avoid walking by Oliver's parked car.  The children returned but when she smiled gently at them, they took off running again, into houses that time.</p><p>Trying her best to focus, Felicity soon realised she was alone... in his car.</p><p>Alena had been looking into Oliver Queen.  <em>Perhaps she'd found him...or he had found her.</em></p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
“You don't often make house calls,” the young hacker remarked as he led Oliver into one of the back rooms.  Headphones hung around his neck and his eyes were bloodshot.  He was coming down of his last kick, of that much Oliver was certain, but he knew no better hacker and what Oliver needed to know, needed to slip under a few radars.</p><p>People couldn’t know he had questions about the girl he’d claimed for himself.<br/>
Other people couldn’t know he had suspicions about the girl from room number 7.</p><p>“This is personal Luis,” Oliver answered bluntly.<br/>
The younger man with inquisitive eyes and jet black hair cocked his head to one side.  “But I still get paid, yes?”<br/>
“Yes.”<br/>
Luis’ youthful smile puffed up his olive cheeks.  “What do you need?”</p><p>Oliver pulled out a copy of Megan's driver's licence and handed the man the same.  <br/>
“She's pretty,” he remarked faintly.  His voice was almost sad.  “Does she need to go...”<br/>
“No,” Oliver cut him off short.  “I need you to find me everything you can on her.  Look for a guy called Cooper. I want anything and everything you can find.”<br/>
“How long?”<br/>
“A couple of days.”</p><p>“Keep this between us,” Oliver remarked in the doorway of the messy bedroom.  “It's personal.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Felicity hadn't found anything.</p><p>Oliver was clean, almost absurdly so.  There wasn't an old wrapper or used tissue anywhere.  The glovebox was organised with wet wipes, sanitiser, tissues, black gloves (ironically), and plastic sandwich bags.</p><p>She found three concealed guns under the two front seats and a small compartment that had bottled water.  There was a second, smaller glovebox, but it was locked.  The ashtray was clean.</p><p>It appeared that Oliver was somewhat neurotically clean; or perhaps it was in his job description.</p><p>She heard the car alarm disarm and her head popped up just as Oliver walked around the front of the car.  He slipped into the driver's seat without a word and Felicity dared not ask him anything.</p><p>The car took off with a roar, and that was that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Abuse comes in many forms.  If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, please reach out to a service in your country.<br/>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domestic_violence_hotlines</p><p>You are not alone.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. || dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Quod nocet, saepe docet.</p><p>Xo</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>The next stop was at a boutique store with ivory walls and soft focus, white lighting.  It was clear what they sold couldn't be afforded by many and it was the elite who shopped there.  The marble floors were freshly polished and the air was pleasant and cool inside the store, cementing Felicity’s initial judgment.</p><p>Oliver had opened the door for her and Felicity had stepped in first, in her jeans and tank top, and the look such an outfit garnered reminded her somewhat of the scene from <em>Pretty Woman</em>, but the idea of it left a bitter taste in her mouth.  This was far from a romantic comedy.</p><p>When Oliver stepped in after her, the sullen looks changed and the two staff put on welcoming smiles instead.</p><p>“Why are we here?” Felicity asked as she glanced around at the store, laid out with chrome racks that had only a few pieces on each.  It had been modelled on designer stores , the likes of which could be found along Rodeo Drive, but some of the clothes she glanced at were tailored to a different audience.</p><p>“Javier's birthday this weekend,” Oliver answered.  He hadn’t made eye contact with the staff and so they hovered, but didn't approach.<br/>
“You already bought me clothes,” Felicity remarked.</p><p>Oliver noted her cool tone, and the fact she hadn’t spoken more than a few words to him.  She was angry, but holding it back from him.<br/>
“There was nothing that befits the occasion,” Oliver confirmed.  For a moment he considered asking about her cool demeanour, but he imagined as soon as he was to bring it up, she would hide it deeper; something Oliver didn’t want to happen.</p><p>He watched as her lips folded around unsaid words, before she finally spoke.  “What would you like me to wear?”<br/>
His fingers grazed her wrist and he wondered if she still felt the ghost of Ángel's grip there.  “I have no intention of choosing your outfit Megan, the choice is yours.”<br/>
She glanced at him, her cherry coloured lips wore next to no expression he could read.  “You did before,” she remarked.</p><p>He touched her shoulder to see if she would retreat from him; she didn’t.<br/>
“You needed clothes so I got you some, but you aren't mine to dress,” he assured her, and while her eyes gave little away, the spirit in them did seem calmed by his words.  “I’m simply here to observe and pay for it.”</p><p>His smile softened and Felicity felt herself drawn to it, even as it confused her.<br/>
When they were together, he spoke warmly and his smile seemed kind, but to the outside world he was ruthless and cold.  She had no way of knowing which was the real Oliver; if there even was one.</p><p>She reached for a dress that was little more than strips of red string, platted to cover a small area where her sex would be.  “So if I chose this?” she asked with a hitched brow.<br/>
Oliver smiled.  “I would question whether you would be warm enough.”</p><p>He looked up and a moment of eye contact had both the assistants at his heels.<br/>
“Can we help you?”<br/>
“I'm looking for a new suit could it be tailored before tomorrow evening?” he asked with all the charm and suave of a Wall Street banker.<br/>
“Of course,” came the quick response from a petite honey bottle-blonde with perfectly applied makeup to give the illusion of flawless skin.<br/>
She was attractive and slim, and she hadn't even glanced at Felicity.<br/>
“Something in grey,” Oliver added as he shrugged the leather jacket he was wearing down his arms.<br/>
The other assistant, a man with slender features and perfect brows stepped forward to take Oliver's jacket.<br/>
“We'll take some pieces to the dressing room when you're ready,” the blonde replied.  Felicity squinted to see her name badge, <em>María</em>.</p><p>It wasn't until Oliver turned to Felicity that María's gaze moved with him.<br/>
“Did you want to look around, Megan?” he asked.<br/>
Felicity smiled, practiced and somewhat superficial.  “Surprise me,” she remarked to María, “but it should complement his suit.  They’ll be on the floor together at the end of the night.”<br/>
The smile she received back from María was tight but pleasant enough.</p><p>Oliver said nothing, but his lopsided smile was akin to a smirk.</p><p>As the two assistants moved away to complete their tasks, Felicity wandered to the window and gazed out with her arms loosely banded around her waist.</p><p>Oliver continued to watch Felicity in silence.  She gave little away in her stance or demeanour, but he recognised a person that was struggling; after all, he'd seen enough of that in his own reflection over the years.</p><p>
  <em>Megan Jones didn't belong here; perhaps she was finally realising that.</em>
</p><p>He walked over to her with every intention of setting her free, or making her leave... whatever it took.  But when the sun hit her features and a hazy glow illuminated her dewy skin and danced around her head like a halo; <em>he couldn't.</em></p><p>Just a moment longer.</p><p>Just a moment more in the light before he shrunk back into the darkness.</p><p><em>Just</em>...</p><p>“Your dressing rooms are ready,” María interrupted.  “I think you'll enjoy the selections.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>Felicity’s dressing room was bathed in flattering soft-focus lights and was the size of a small New York apartment.  The floor was creamy marble with flecks of grey and the only furniture in the room was a square, padded white leather ottoman pushed against the wall beside a floor length mirror – tilted ever so slightly to provide a flattering reflection no doubt.</p><p>The clothes that had been selected for her weren’t as bad as she had expected; surprising Felicity.  Although, a few appeared far shorter and tighter than Felicity herself might have chosen.</p><p>The first was a red mini dress, something akin to a Vegas cocktail dress.  It was short and tight and the bodice barely contained her breasts.  There was also not a hope in hell that she was going to be able to do the zip up comfortably.</p><p>Perhaps that had entirely been the point?</p><p>She pulled back the heavy-drapery to the dressing room foyer.  It was much like the two smaller rooms off it, the same soft focus lighting and the same opulent flooring, but there was a back wall entirely of mirrors and an ivory divan couch that looked like a vintage French piece.</p><p>It was there that Felicity found Oliver… with María.</p><p>The suit pants he had on were a steel grey, almost the colour of coal. They fit him well, smoothly draped over his rear end – just tight enough to show the firmness near his waist.  The shirt he wore was ebony, a colour which looked rich and decadent against his warmly tanned complexion.  The two buttons near the top were undone, which is where Felicity found María, busily herself with flattening the front placket as though it was an endeavour which took the utmost care and precision.</p><p>The assistant’s eyes flirted between Oliver’s chest and his face, and while Felicity couldn’t hear any of the exchange of words between them, she did hear the soft trickles of a laugh from the woman’s painted lips when it echoed across the room.</p><p>But her hands didn’t stop there.</p><p>Once the shirt buttons were fastened she moved to the cuffs, touching and stroking his forearms with the delight of a sex-driven teen at a boy band concert.</p><p>And, when her deft fingers moved up Oliver’s arms to his shoulders, Felicity felt the pang of jealousy before she even recognised the same and a loud cough announced her presence.</p><p>María fell away with a guilty, but lascivious smirk.<br/>
“Perhaps a larger size?” she said, cultivating the same smirk before she turned on her heels and walked away to fetch it.</p><p>Oliver, however, locked his eyes on Felicity and, without moving them away, he sauntered up to her wearing a smile.<br/>
“This colour looks beautiful on you,” he whispered, barely touching the hem of the skirt as though he was worried a touch too long would cause him to lose control.<br/>
“Is this how you want me to look?” Felicity breathed, her voice icy, her eyes cold.<br/>
His hand hovered near her face, only just touching her powdery cheek with his knuckle, before she fell away from him, back into the dressing room.</p><p>Oliver followed, pulling the curtain closed to give them some perceived privacy.<br/>
“I would prefer you simply look happy Megan,” he remarked as she stood with her back to him, the dress gaping open and exposing the slender line of her spine and the aggravation she seemed to wear in her muscles.</p><p>“She’s flirting with you,” Felicity commented dryly as she peeled off the dress and draped it over the white ottoman.  The colours; red and white, seemed so intrinsically opposite – purity and sin – but together they caught the eye, drew it in, and taunted it in ways Oliver’s eyes couldn’t ignore.<br/>
“Are you jealous?” he asked, his eyes tracking her fingers as she slipped one strap of her ivory bra down her willowy shoulder, and then the other.</p><p>Felicity unhooked her bra and set down atop the red dress; flimsy, white, and sheer, before she looked back cool over her naked shoulder and sighed.<br/>
“Are girlfriends allowed to be jealous?” she whispered before she slipped on the next dress; a black chiffon backless number.</p><p>The airy fabric glided down her body and the wispy train pooled around her feet.  She turned, lifting his gaze to hers with little more than a breathy sigh.</p><p>“I’m yours,” she whispered touching the faint mark near her shoulder.  It had all but faded away, but its meaning had not, “but are you mine?”</p><p>Felicity stood in front of him, close enough that he could see the wetness of her lips and the mist of perspiration across her collarbone.</p><p>Wordlessly she turned, with her hair pulled over one shoulder.  Oliver’s knuckles grazed her spine before they paused at the small clasp at her neck, which he fastened silently.</p><p>Felicity pulled back the curtain and walked in front of the mirrored wall, feeling the dress with her fingers where it tapered into her waist.</p><p>María was there with a jacket for Oliver, but when she moved to put it on him, he took it from her hands and stepped back, before he nodded to Felicity’s reflection.</p><p>
  <em>He was hers.</em>
</p><p>“This one does not please you,” he remarked as he stood behind her, his frame dwarfing her own.<br/>
“The fabric,” she breathed, clutching some that draped near her hips. “It’s rough against my skin.”<br/>
One of Oliver’s arms moved around to the front of her body to feel what she was feeling, while the other ghosted up her bare arm.<br/>
“Are my hands not rougher than this?” he whispered, his lips nicking her ear.<br/>
“No,” she mouthed, the word lost beneath a breath.</p><p>He could see Felicity still held anger in her eyes.<br/>
He wanted it.</p><p>He wanted her wrath, her hatred; he deserved it.</p><p>Oliver excused himself with a gentle kiss against her neck before he left the dressing room, and Felicity. </p><p>Behind her curtain she pulled the dress from her body, fighting back the anger and the pain that a year of dead ends and lies had given her.  She felt the sickness creep up her throat; unsure who she even was anymore.</p><p>But none of that mattered.<br/>
That’s what she would tell herself.</p><p>As she clutched an black slip dress between her shaking hands, Oliver pulled back the curtain, but stayed in the doorway.</p><p>“We’re alone now you can speak your mind,” he encouraged, watching as Felicity dressed herself in the shimmering satin.<br/>
She said nothing as she went to move past him, but Oliver caught her wrist and spun her back to face him.  He was not rough, and his grip while firm, was not tight; much like it had been the first night they met... only days ago.<br/>
“Tell me you hate me, tell me the anger simmering in your eyes is reserved for me,” he said, his voice guarded and his tone low.<br/>
“Is that what you want me to say?” Felicity bit back, wrestling with the tempest below her skin.<br/>
“If it’s the truth.”</p><p>She wrestled her hand free, but only took one more step before Oliver caught her again, this time with his arm around her waist.</p><p>“Tell me you hate me,” he begged as he held her to his chest.<br/>
She pushed herself free and he didn’t stop her a third time.<br/>
“How can you hate something you don’t know?” she breathed, her eyes burning holes into his blackened soul.</p><p>She watched as his chest filled with a breath, but he did not answer her.<br/>
“I hate what you made me in that pool,” she seethed, her eyes welling up and her stomach in her throat.  <br/>
He felt her anger like a blade twisting in his chest, yet he yearned for it.  Because at least in pain; he felt something.</p><p>He stepped forward, his eyes focused on her.<br/>
“Tell me you hate me,” he said, gravelled and bitter.<br/>
Before Felicity knew what she was doing, her open hand met with the side of his face in a slap that shook down her forearm.</p><p>His head was turned, his eyes to the floor, his breath slow and steady.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Felicity lowered her trembling hand.<br/>
Her breath was stunned and her eyes wide.<br/>
<em>What had she done?</em></p><p>“I am sorry, mi ángel,” he whispered before he slowly raised his head.<br/>
“Why” Felicity asked, shaking.  “Why did you do it?”<br/>
“Sometimes my monsters are too loud.  I don’t hear the other whispers,” he said, soft and weathered with regret.  “But you kissed me in the room afterwards, why?”</p><p>“To quieten the monsters,” she spoke; a whisper, a breath.<br/>
“Is that why you’re here? Why you stay?” His eyes lifted, his voice grew deep and gravelled.   “Do you think you can take them? Do you think you can find my redemption?” Darkness peppered his tone, as if he felt himself beyond that notion – redemption.<br/>
“Your redemption is between you and your god,” Felicity replied, a fierceness in her words.<br/>
“Then why?” he pressed.<br/>
She took a step forward, closing the gap between them.  His warm sigh brushed against her parted lips as she blinked up at him,<br/>
“Maybe my monsters want to play with yours.”</p><p>She kissed his lips, soft and far more innocent than his world deserved.  It was short, painfully incomplete, and her lips wore the softest veil of wetness when she pulled away.</p><p>Silence flooded the room.</p><p>Neither moved.</p><p>A second kiss; just as soft as the first.</p><p>“Do your demons want to play Oliver?” she whispered against his lips.</p><p>They did.</p><p>The sex was unbridled and insatiable.  Her back against the mirrored wall, sweat and tantric breaths fogging and smearing tracks across the same.  His hands fisted the fabric of her dress, tearing away one shoulder seam.  Her skin wore his desperate kisses while his neck was littered with violent, crimson nail trenches.</p><p>Fabric pooled at her waist, while his pants hung around his knees.  Her legs wrapped around his body and she met every one of his deep thrusts with a slow grind of her hips until the entire room filled with the sounds of their pleasure.</p><p>His lips chased hers, kissing each moan from them before their eyes met.<br/>
“Come first,” he growled, begging and desperate.<br/>
She tipped her hips, shifting the angle of his embedded cock so its head grazed her throbbing wall.<br/>
“Make me,” she panted before she knotted her fingers into his hair.<br/>
He kissed her neck, slow and seductive, relishing the tiny twitches her skin made when his teeth grazed across it.  Her entire body was warm; inside and out, and when he gently sucked on her thrumming pulse on her neck, her body crushed around his cock.</p><p>Her body was an inferno and her eyes were wet and wide with desperation as he took his time to kiss her, knowing that every second felt like wondrous torture.</p><p>“Oliver.” His named bled from her lips.<br/>
He looked up, her hair was damp against her temples, her cheeks flushed, and her lips swollen.</p><p>Her monsters were beautiful.</p><p>Holding her waist he rocked her gently around his cock, pulling another shaky moan from her lips, before he thrust deep and relentlessly, making her take ever inch until her climax erupted around him, warm, silky, deliciously wet.</p><p>Deliriously, Felicity arms fell limply over Oliver’s shoulders as he continued to pump through her orgasm, chasing his own.  It was only then, as her eyes cracked open, that Felicity realised they had an audience; with her mouth aghast and her eyes wide, María watched as Oliver found his release with his face nuzzled into Felicity’s neck.</p><p>With a smile toying with the fringes of Felicity's lips, she looked the sales assistant clear in the eyes, ran her hands through Oliver’s untamed hair, and softly kissed his damp temple.</p><p>
  <em>Match point.</em>
</p><p>María made herself decidedly scarce the rest of the time they were in the shop, and the next dress Felicity tried on was a strapless red Zuhair Murad dress with a sheer bodice decorated with hand-stitched crystal detailing, while the skirt was layers of ethereal, silk chiffon and a split that cut to her upper thigh.  It fit like a glove, hugging her curves and pulling Oliver's eyes slowly down her body.</p><p>“This one,” he breathed, his fingers aching to touch the fabric.  “Do you like it Megan?”<br/>
“It's beautiful,” Felicity replied.  It truly was.  “But, would it go with your grey suit?” she teased with a smile.</p><p>Oliver beckoned a reluctant María over.  “Find me a suit that complements this dress.”<br/>
“Of course,” she said with a tight smile.</p><p>They left the store an hour later after purchasing two suits, the stunning crimson dress, and the black number Oliver had inadvertently torn. </p><p><br/>
<strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
The next stop took them down a dirt track where the arid air tasted like fireworks.  Felicity had expected Oliver to leave her in the car again, but instead he walked around the car, opened her door, and offered her his hand.</p><p>With a painted smile to hide her curiosity about where exactly they were... and why, Felicity took his hand.</p><p>A loud shot rung out through the still air, followed by three matching cracks that felt like electricity in the dust.</p><p>She hadn't meant to react as she did, but absently and reactively she held his hand a fraction tighter.</p><p>Perhaps anyone else might not have noticed; but Oliver wasn't 'anyone else', and he noticed... gun shots startled her.</p><p>“It's a gun range,” Oliver commented as he smoothed his thumb over the back of her palm.  “You need to be able to protect yourself.”</p><p>When Oliver walked inside the bunker-style range, he walked straight past the front desk and either side of his chosen booth emptied within seconds and without him uttering a single word.</p><p>He loosed a Browning Hi-Power single-action, semi-automatic 9mm handgun from his chest holster and set it on the bench in front of them.</p><p>“Pick it up,” he instructed and Felicity did as he asked, feeling the lightweight weapon between her small palms.  </p><p>He stood behind her and gently covered her ears with a pair of earmuffs, leaving just one slightly skewed so she could hear him.  With his arms shadowing her and his hands enveloping hers, Oliver closed her hands around the grip, sitting high on the back strap, and closed the fingers of her left hand around her right.</p><p>“Two hands,” he whispered near her ear.<br/>
She nodded as she stroked the trigger guard with her forefinger. <br/>
“Like a puzzle.”  As he spoke he moved her thumbs so they lay next to each other.</p><p>He lightly tapped the inside of her foot.  “Widen your stance.”<br/>
Her feet shifted in the dusty concrete until her feet were in line with her shoulders and he encouraged her with a breathy, “perfect.”</p><p>“Aim for the chest,” Oliver continued, each word spoken like it was a secret between them.</p><p>He guided her arms up in line with her shoulders.  “Bend your elbows.”  His palms grazed down her forearms.<br/>
“Can you see the target?”<br/>
She felt his breath down her neck and a wick of prickles raised in its wake.<br/>
“Yes.”<br/>
“When you're ready, squeeze the trigger slowly, feel the pressure and keep your hands locked.”  He kissed her tingling neck, slow and deliberate.  “Don't get distracted, focus,” he warned, and with her eyes locked at the black and white poster 5 yards away.</p><p>When his lips reached her ear, his hands fell away from her and he settled the earmuff onto her ear.  He wore none.</p><p>Felicity breathed, slow and concise, as she felt the cool metal with her fingertips.  The air was stale, the air vent above them was old and dusty.  Her eyes were set, focused; reminding her why she was here.</p><p>She breathed in.<br/>
Out.<br/>
In.</p><p>Squeeze.</p><p>The recoil shook down her arms but she kept her perfect stance as she squeezed off another.</p><p>One.<br/>
Two.<br/>
Three.</p><p>Matching her breath.<br/>
Mimicking her heartbeat.</p><p>Oliver looked down at the target.</p><p>Three shots.<br/>
Directly to the heart.</p><p>Felicity set the gun down and pulled down the earmuffs before she turned to face Oliver.</p><p>“You are quite something,” he remarked.</p><p>She smiled softly.<br/>
He had no idea.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Dark.</p><p>The room was shrouded in it.  The air tasted like it.  The walls smelled like it.</p><p><em>Did darkness have a taste or a scent?</em> She didn't know anymore.  It was hard for her to remember what if anything she did know.</p><p>She counted slowly in her head, numbers one to one hundred. Over and over. To remember. To remind herself that she knew that once.  </p><p>Winter comes after Autumn. Spring follows Summer. <em>No</em>. She squeezed her eyes tighter, <em>that wasn't right.</em>  Spring then Summer, Autumn then Winter.</p><p>She felt her chest sink with the next breath.  <em>That was right, that had to be right?</em></p><p>The days were next; she spoke them with her lips moving but no sound.  And she smiled as she recounted them all without a mistake. </p><p>The months were next, the order and how many days each had.  She repeated a nursery rhyme, slow and still silent. Careful to be right.</p><p>At December she sighed.  31 days.<br/>
Her eyes blinked in the shadowy room.  She had become used to the dankness now.  They only allowed her fresh air twice.  That had been weeks ago now.... maybe more.</p><p>She didn't know.</p><p>She pressed a finger to her lip and nipped away at the edge.  There wasn't a nail to chew there anymore, but she took her nervous bites anyway.</p><p>Between this room and the other, back and forth; day in and day out.</p><p>She counted to a hundred again, slower, careful not to make a mistake.</p><p>Because Alena knew the only thing keeping her alive was her brain.</p><p>They still needed that.</p><p>Routing.<br/>
Hijacking.<br/>
Covering.</p><p>She needed to keep her brain working and active, despite the fact she was starving and restless.</p><p>She was afraid to sleep.</p><p>The other rooms made noises.</p><p>Ghastly.<br/>
Even with her hands pressed tightly to her head, she couldn't escape them.</p><p>Ninety three, ninety four...<br/>
As she counted she thought about the message she had seen yesterday.</p><p>A flicker.<br/>
A hope.<br/>
A crumb.</p><p>Perhaps she had imagined it?<br/>
<em>Ninety five, ninety six.</em></p><p>Barely a thread of hope remained.</p><p>It had been so long.</p><p><em>Ninety seven.</em><br/>
Her eyes drooped.<br/>
<em>Ninety eight.</em><br/>
Heavy.<br/>
<em>Ninety nine.</em><br/>
Weak.<br/>
<em>One hundred.</em></p><p>It had been so long.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. || key</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>author's note.</strong>
</p><p>
  <b>With a total disregard for human life, Breonna Taylor was murdered in her own home on March 13, 2020.  She was 26 years old and she was shot 8 times, in her bed, by the very people sworn to protect.</b>
</p><p><b>She had a life ahead of her that she was not allowed to live and enjoy.</b> <b></b></p><p>
  <b>No one has been arrested.</b>
</p><p>
  <b>Please take a moment, if you haven't already, to sign the petition calling for the officers involved to be held rightfully accountable for her death.</b>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor?source_location=discover_feed">
    <strong>https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor?source_location=discover_feed</strong>
  </a>
</p><p>
  <b>#SayHerName #BlackLivesMatter</b>
</p><p>
  <b>  </b>
</p><p>Felicity hadn’t expected it to work, and she didn’t know how much time he would afford her.  But, after they arrived home she had told Oliver she felt unwell, tired, and wished to sleep for some time.  She had expected a callous disregard to her request; or perhaps worse.  However, after a tender kiss on her forehead he told her to rest for the rest of the afternoon.</p><p>And then he had left.<br/>Leaving her alone.</p><p>She had moved as fast as she could, planting a fake Cooper into her invented life, and hoping it would be enough.</p><p>Megan had taken her eight months to create.  She had been carefully crafted, designed, written in layers of code far more elaborate and deep than she probably needed to be.  But, Megan needed to be real enough to live, and to die.</p><p>Felicity hadn’t entered this den of destruction under the illusion that when she found Alena, they would simply walk out the front gates.  <em>Megan</em> would die here.  Felicity already had Alena’s new identity ready to go; she hadn’t spent her last 11 months being idle.</p><p>The afternoon soon shifted into early evening and Felicity pushed herself away from the desk, uneasy but hopeful it would be enough.  A small edit to her life... <em>to Megan's life.</em></p><p>She checked the clock, but the small knock on the door answered the question in her mind.</p><p>Her time was up.</p><p>She closed the laptop and checked its position against the tape she had marked the desk with, then discarded the tape underneath the plastic bag that lined his bin.  Then, satisfied, she padded in her robe to the door.</p><p>“Who is it?”<br/>“Oliver,” he answered through the door.<br/>She knew his voice, but she needed another few moments to scan her eyes across the room.<br/>“Prove it, what colour dress did we buy?” she asked as her eyes roved about, ensuring there was nothing out of place.<br/>“It was red,” he answered.  “Although I had to buy the black one we ripped.”<br/>She unlocked and opened the door.  “You ripped it,” she remarked coyly as she leaned her petite body against the edge of the door.</p><p>He leaned in close, a smile caught on his lips.  They brushed her cheek, slow and deliberate.<br/>“You made me,” he whispered.<br/>She stepped back to allow him in the room, and once inside she closed the door with her body pressed against it.</p><p>Oliver took a precursory scan around the room before he turned at the foot of the bed.  The sheets were crumpled and the pillow was skewed; giving an illusion of being slept in.<br/>“Are you feeling better?”<br/>Felicity nodded as she swallowed a shallow breath.</p><p>Her hands moved to the tie in her robe and she slowly began to undo it.<br/>“Not tonight mi ángel,” Oliver said, warm and deep.<br/>She looked at him quizzically; <em>how could he be so kind to her, when he could demand anything?</em></p><p>“Will you shower for me?”<br/>There was no demand in either his words or his tone.<br/>“Now?” she asked.<br/>He nodded, faint and only the once.  “Please?”<br/>“Of course,” she offered as she sauntered to the bathroom.  “Will you be joining me?”<br/>Keeping his distance, Oliver answered with a husky tone, “keep the water running until I join you.”<br/>Felicity dropped her robe, which left her naked, and Oliver’s eyes roamed freely across her slender form.  “As you wish,” she mewled before she walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower.</p><p>Oliver waited a few moments before he pressed his palm to the sheets; even under the blankets he found no residual warmth.  The pillow was airy and ballooned, meaning a head had not recently pressed into it.  Though neither of those things meant much, only that she had risen some time before he had knocked.</p><p>He moved quickly but carefully around the room when something caught his eye; a tacky residue on the top of his desk, just underneath his laptop.  It was faint and barely noticeable, but a long blonde strand of hair was caught up in it.  He found no tape in the trash and nothing else seemed touched, and so, Oliver simply added the information to the notebook in his head and started for the bathroom.</p><p>The warm cloud of steam enveloped Oliver as he walked deeper into the bathroom.  The consistent sound of falling water enthralled him closer until through the steam he saw Felicity's soaked body behind the foggy shower door, dappled with water.</p><p>She saw him too, as the water drenched her back and lathered shampoo pooled down her body, Felicity wiped her small hand across the glass.  Over the glass, Oliver touched his hand to hers, completely shadowing it.</p><p>Felicity opened the shower door, and a small billow of cool air whipped against her body causing her to shiver as tiny sprinkles of water escaped the large glass box.</p><p>“Are you joining me?” she asked, barely above the sound of the water hitting the slate floor.<br/>“May I watch you instead?” Oliver requested as he leaned against the small end of the floating vanity.</p><p>Felicity smiled before she mouthed a soft, of course, and stepped back into the cascade of water.</p><p>Slowly and with her eyes affixed to him, Felicity coated her locks in conditioner before laying the sodden tail of her hair over one shoulder.</p><p>She caught his smile as she filled a washcloth with body wash that carried the aroma of a Hawaiian breakfast.  It felt like silk against her skin and airy, ivory bubbles slid sensually down her legs.</p><p>Oliver released a deep, decadent sigh, rich with desire and longing as he followed the trail of teasing white down her body. He fought his wanton inclination to tear off his clothes and press her naked body against the tiled walls.</p><p>Some might question his restraint and his need for the same, but watching her was like art, a tiny glimpse into a purity and life that could not belong to him.  One he dare not taint.</p><p>She was sensual, intoxicating... but innocent.  She could not hide that from him, no matter how she tried.</p><p>Perhaps it was pleasure.<br/>Perhaps it was torment.</p><p>Perhaps for Oliver, those two things were one in the same.</p><p>A last reprieve.<br/>Before....</p><p>Felicity shut the water off and reactively Oliver found the towel she'd laid out for herself behind him before he offered the same to her.</p><p>She patted her body dry before wrapping herself in the large towel.  Silence lingered between them, with only the warmth of their breaths and the dissipating misty steam.</p><p>It was Oliver who broke the silence.<br/>“If you are to be mine,” he started, quiet and breathy as his fingertip touched the mark on her shoulder that was all but gone.</p><p>Felicity nodded faintly.  “You need to mark me? A scar this time?” As the words left her mouth, her eyes gave way to a moment of fear.  He saw it.</p><p>She watched him swallow with a clenched jaw... <em>regret, purpose</em>, she didn't know.  He took her hand, small and delicate, as though a priceless vase lay in his palm, and led her to the bedroom and eventually the bed, where he guided her to sit.</p><p>One hand lay in his while the other clenched the towel in the centre of her breastbone.  He let her hand slip from his as he moved away.  In a bag she saw two boxes, but Oliver pulled out only one.</p><p>It was red, almost leather, and the square box was the size of his palm.  He set it down beside her before stealing a moment to touch the dark, wet tendrils of her hair that spilled over her slim shoulder.</p><p>“There is a car waiting for you outside,” he started.<br/>Felicity's mouth opened to speak but with a pleading glance and his fingertip across her lips, Oliver begged her silence; which she gave him.<br/>“Dress, take whatever you wish, walk down the stairs, and get in that car. It will take you to the airport where a ticket to Florida is waiting for you.  Get on that plane, leave, and never come back,” he pleaded as his knuckles grazed her soft cheek.</p><p>“And if I don't?” she whispered before she pressed a soft kiss into the heel of his palm.</p><p>Oliver opened the box.  Inside it, sitting on a bed of black velvet was a white gold bracelet with three lines of diamonds around the whole circumference; Felicity recognised it as a Cartier Love bracelet.  Once on, it was tightened with a screwdriver held by the other person.  It didn’t come off without the same screwdriver.</p><p>“You put it on, and you become mine.”<br/>He lifted her chin and kissed her lips softly, as if he was saving the very last one.</p><p>His lips fell away, aching at the needed retreat.  “The choice is yours,” he said, a slight quiver in his voice.  “I'll return in twenty minutes.”</p><p>And then he left.</p><p>And Felicity breathed; shaking.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>Oliver took his seat around the mahogany table with a glass of pale spirits in his hand.  There was talk of shipments passing through the docks; something which had been happening since Oliver had walked into the Cártel.  They moved weapons that way, with paid workers on the docks that ensured their shipments made it through.  </p><p>For the most part it worked, but it also relied heavily on human nature; and the balance that greed played.  The workers' greed ensured that they would risk their jobs for some cash in their pockets, but getting too greedy would see them asking for more, and the Sangre didn't negotiate.</p><p>It was a fine tender hook arrangement that continued to be a thorn in Ángel's side.  That meeting was no different.</p><p>The middle son was agitated, and his knuckles were white as he gripped his glass.  Oliver noticed, however, that his demeanour was far more angry than he'd seen him in the past.</p><p>“There are other ways, I have them, the world is changing and moving and if we don't move with it,” Ángel raged towards the patriarch.<br/>“Enough!” Javier demanded as his fist slammed onto the table top.</p><p>No one blinked.</p><p>“This is how we have always done it. This is how we do it.”  Javier was a traditionalist, an interesting concept in their line of work.</p><p>“Oliver, will your beauty be joining us this evening?” Javier questioned.  The change in his demeanour was unmissable, from a rage to a smooth, charismatic leader.<br/>“Not tonight, she is exhausted,” Oliver answered with a coy smile before he took a sip of the golden whisky.</p><p>“Managing to keep that bitch in control yet?” Ángel hissed.  His anger was clearly residual.  “Or does she control you?”</p><p>Oliver took another sip, slow and considered before he set down the glass, leaned his back into the leather chair, and let his lips form around a naturally coy smile.  He would say nothing.</p><p>“Not a fucking bruise on her,” Ángel spat across the table before he laughed, droll but malicious.<br/>“Why ruin my view by bruising something so beautiful?” Oliver hummed as two fingertips tapped the table top.</p><p>Javier laughed and a few more trickled around the room, following suit.  “I'll drink to that,” he remarked raising his glass.</p><p>Oliver sat up straight and narrowed his eyes on Ángel, but he looked away when he spoke.  “I do not need fear to control her.  I control her with her own wants. She doesn't fear me, she craves me.”<br/>“Here's to that,” Maxi cheered and other's raised their glasses too.<br/>“Every inch of her belongs to me because she begs it to,” Oliver finished, smirking.</p><p>Javier stood up and straightened the lapel of his dark jacket.<br/>“And that,” he started with a grin, “is the difference between a boy and a man.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>Felicity looked down at the diamond encrusted bracelet with a trepidation in her shaky breath.  Yet again, Oliver had offered her an out, tried to push her away, and make her leave.  There had been something in his voice that time, something in the thin and brittle tone, something akin to begging... and yet when his lips pressed against hers, aching and soft, slow and gentle, she swore that they begged her to stay.</p><p>
  <em>How could a man wear two faces? And were either of them real?</em>
</p><p>A pang of guilt tore through her chest like a bullet; none of those thoughts mattered... she had come too far to care about the man with two lives.  She didn't need to understand him; she just needed to stay one step ahead of him.</p><p>She dressed quickly and made her choice.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>Oliver's hand hovered above the door handle for a few moments; whether he would find her still inside the room or not he didn't know.</p><p>Another breath; seated deep within his chest.</p><p>Then he opened it.</p><p>The only light on was the lamp by the bed and the space she had once occupied was now empty.  He stepped inside and pushed the door closed with his weight while he looked around the dimly lit room.</p><p>It was empty.</p><p>A breeze lifted the gauzy curtain by his patio and drew his eye towards it.  Oliver sunk deeper into the room and its shadows until he saw a silhouette on the balcony.</p><p>Wordlessly he walked towards her, but he paused on the cusp of the patio as she pushed off the railing and stepped into the path of the moonlight that dappled through the cloudy sky.</p><p>Felicity raised her arm, the bracelet lose around it, before she handed him the small screwdriver with her other hand.</p><p>“Are you sure?” he asked as he held her hand in his palm.<br/>“I am.”<br/>There was a quiver in her voice and a dryness in her throat.</p><p>She wasn't sure of anything... <em>but she'd come this far.</em></p><p>
  <br/>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>Felicity awoke the next morning, alone.  It was early, the sun barely had time to brighten the morning sky, and yet Oliver had already left, leaving her a note requesting she stay in the room, apologising that he could not stay, and telling her he would be back around lunchtime.</p><p>As she held the note in her hand, she couldn’t help but wonder how loud his demons must be and what it would take to silence them long enough to let him feel a restful sleep.  He had been restless beside her during the night, and in the thin threads of light that pierced through the curtains, she had studied him; the tensing in his jaw, the tightness across his brow, and the way his dreams haunted him behind his troubled eyelids.</p><p>Perhaps the man who wore death like cologne, had a conscience after all.</p><p>Felicity slipped from the sheets and dressed in a robe, stalling for a moment when the silk fabric brushed over the bracelet.  It moved an inch or so up and down her wrist, but there was no way it could come off her hand.</p><p>After she tied the robe around her waist she paused to study the jewellery a second time; there was no way that such a piece saturated in diamonds ran cheap, and yet he chose it over something far more permanent and barbaric.  Her thoughts shifted to what the other girls had told her, the brandings they wore, and how prepared Felicity had been to accept a similar fate.</p><p>But he hadn’t.</p><p>Instead of a tattoo or scar burned into her flesh; he’d adorned her in a luxury Cartier bracelet.</p><p>
  <em>I don’t want to hurt you.</em>
</p><p>His words; she hadn’t been sure whether to believe them then.  <em>But now?...</em></p><p>Her bare feet shifted on the rug before she shook the thoughts from her head.  She was alone in the room, meaning she needed to be looking for Alena.</p><p>After ensuring her tracks were untraceable, Felicity used her honed skills to dig deeper into the Sangre.  She peeled back layer after layer, learning what she could – from police staff on the payroll, to warehouses they worked out of.  None of it was particularly hard to find, which spoke to their reach.  A newbie with a <em>Dummies Guide to Hacking</em> could find it, so no doubt law enforcement could too.  Yet, they didn’t.  Or, they didn't care to. </p><p>She slowly reached a few fronds that were harder to decrypt.  Their encryption didn’t follow the same patterns as the others, meaning what lay behind those virtual doors were of more importance.</p><p><em>Importance</em> might not have been the right word, Felicity decided a few moments later when she was staring at a slew of information.</p><p>Shipping records, manifests, and routes.</p><p>Declaration forms for California, redirects, and offloading approvals.</p><p>She nipped at her nail as her eyes scanned the information in front of her; it was splinters from a far bigger picture she couldn’t yet understand, but it appeared to be a system that circumvented the usual importing checks.  Meaning, in very basic terms, shipments were offloaded and left the docks without a single person laying an eye on them.</p><p>Someone had built this.</p><p>Someone who knew what they were doing.</p><p>Someone who could hack the DEA, the Ports Authority, CBP, and even the DHS, and not have a single person notice.</p><p>Someone like Felicity.... <em>or her protégé.</em></p><p>Felicity sat back with her eyes affixed to the screen; this had the hallmarks of her own hands all over it, with the exception of a few steps that Felicity herself would have taken.</p><p>But this was only the tip of the iceberg; in theory such a system could be used in any other port with a few minor tweaks, and to import almost anything.</p><p>This was a digital skeleton key.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p><br/>“Marry her!” Maxi exclaimed as he sucked back a mid-morning pulque.<br/>“Isn’t it too early for that?” Oliver teased as he glanced down at the milky, peach-hued drink.<br/>Maxi threw his head back in an animated laugh, his pale blue eyes alive with the day.  “Straight from the 400 breasts of the goddess Mayahuel, it's never too early.”<br/>“I’m not carrying you when you’re drunk off your face,” Oliver jested as he finished checking the AR15 in his hands.</p><p>Maxi’s laugh faded, but his coy smile didn't.  “Marry her,” he repeated.<br/>“You're already drunk it seems,” Oliver replied.<br/>“She makes you smile, I’ve never seen you fucking smile.”<br/>Oliver set the high powered weapon down on the bench of the basement armoury.<br/>“She’s a passing hobby, that’s all.”<br/>“You talk to me like I’m one of them,” Maxi huffed as he glanced up towards the ceiling.  “But, I believe in love.”<br/>Oliver scoffed slightly, his naivety would be charming if it wasn't that he lived in an illusion.</p><p>He knew what his father did.<br/>And yet, he spoke about love.</p><p>He knew what paid for the sports car he drove.<br/>And yet, he called his mother twice a week.</p><p>The others all knew they were monsters.<br/>They all knew they dealt in lives and wrote in blood.</p><p>But not him; not yet.</p><p>“She is beautiful yes?” Maxi asked as he followed Oliver back to the crate of weapons.<br/>“She is,” Oliver sighed, trying to focus on his task, but haunted by the softness of her lips.<br/>“And you can please each other sexually?”<br/>Oliver looked up with a crinkled brow.<br/>“I’ll take that as a yes,” Maxi snickered before he took another drink.  “So marry her.”</p><p>Oliver took the glass from Maxi’s hand and guzzled the rest of the drink.  “You're drunk and we have guns to count.”<br/>Maxi shrugged as an uneven smiled curled up his lips.  “You love her, so marry her.”</p><p>It was never that simple.</p><p>It never would be.</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>When Oliver returned to the room that afternoon he found Felicity sitting in the sun on the patio, flipping the pages of a magazine.  She looked up and set the magazine aside as he approached, smiling gently.<br/>“You don’t have to stop reading for me,” he remarked.<br/>Felicity chuckled softly.  “It hardly counts as reading.”<br/>Oliver’s lips flexed into a smile as he dragged the second chair closer and sat down opposite Felicity, just far enough apart that their knees didn’t touch, but close enough that he could rest his hand on her leg as he stretched forward.</p><p>The bracelet on her wrist caught the sun and reflected a sharp burst of light near his eye; a stark reminder of what he’d asked of her, and – to a larger extent – what she had offered.</p><p>“Ask your questions and I will answer what I can,” he said.  His voice was calm and measured, but she saw sadness in his eyes.<br/>“What was in the other box you brought home yesterday?” she asked, nodding towards the vicinity of where the bag still sat from the night before.<br/>A smile lifted his lips lopsided for a fleeting moment.  “Something for later.”<br/>Her teeth fretted with her bottom lip as she considered the next question she could ask; what truths he might be willing to divulge.<br/>“Why are you here?  Why you, why them?”<br/>“Money,” he answered without a waver in his expression, or even a moment’s pause to consider his answer.  It felt practiced and disingenuous.<br/>She leaned a little closer and dragged a nail across the edge of his bent knee.  “Not the power?”<br/>“Perhaps it’s both,” he whispered as his middle digit floated near her finger.<br/>While his expression gained a little more animation, his answer still seemed rehearsed</p><p>“What do you do here?” she asked, keeping her eyes affixed with his as he drew in a sharp inhale.<br/>That time his answer was not immediate.  “I clean up their messes,” he finally replied.  <br/>“Have you killed people?”<br/>He drew his hand back, away from hers.  “Yes.”  His answer was stoic; neither pride nor shame toned the single word.<br/>“How many?”<br/>His eyes dropped to his lap and she watched his chest rise with a laboured breath.  “As many as I needed to.”<br/>Felicity leaned closer and took his hand into her own.  His eyes darted up to hers, confusion pinning his brow.<br/>“Why did you leave me in that hotel room?” <br/>Oliver swallowed her question down like a thousand razor blades.  “Someone was going to collect you.”<br/>She wanted to looked away from him, but she didn’t.  “Who?”<br/>“I don’t know.”  His mouth flinched at one corner; he was lying.<br/>“Why am I still here?” she asked, soft and faint, pulling him closer just to hear her words.<br/>His finger brushed under her chin, tantalisingly slow.  “You know why?”</p><p>Felicity expelled a tiny breath from between her bowed lips.</p><p>“Should I be afraid of your monsters?” she whispered as his other hand rose and gently cupped her face.<br/>“Yes.”<br/>His answer saddened him; because it was the truth.</p><p>She stood up while still holding his hand in hers.<br/>“What was in the other box?”<br/>A smile, fleeting but coy.  “For later.”</p><p>He stood up and kissed her lips gently.<br/>“Maxi wants us to go out with him and Rosa tonight; is that something you would like?”<br/>Felicity smiled cautiously; while Rosa hadn’t be around as long as the other girls, she may be able to give Felicity some information – it was worth a try.  “Sounds like fun.”</p><p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p><p>It was after 10pm when they pulled up alongside the valet parking for a club.  The façade was non-descript, a black wall without windows, and a door that opened into a black hallway with a doorman the size of a least three average size men standing at the mouth of it.  The line behind the purple velvet ropes was long and filled with people vying for their chance to get into the night club.  The only sign writing was a silver plate on the side of the door that had the word <strong><em>Víbora</em></strong> cut into it; <em>Viper.</em></p><p>Oliver took the lead, stopping only briefly to nod knowingly at the doorman.  The man responded in kind and let them through without a word being exchange.  There was a thump of music vibrating through the air as the four of them walked down the dark hall.  Small purple lights directed them down the stairs and the bass of the music grew in intensity as they approached a set of black double doors.</p><p>Another large man in a dark suit opened the door for them and Maxi slipped in first, playfully dragging a giddy Rosa along behind.  Oliver moved to the side and with his hand gently resting on Felicity’s lower back, he guided her in.</p><p>The assault of loud, echoing music was almost immediate, as was the mix of strobe and laser lights forcing their way through the darkness.  Felicity felt herself inch closer to Oliver, until her hip bumped against his, and he cautiously left his hand on the small of her back with the tips of his fingers curling around her waist.</p><p>Her black dress was backless, allowing the warmth of his palm to melt into her skin.  It was short, cut to her mid-thigh, and she resisted every urge she had to tug it down.  It hugged her shape like liquid but sat high across her chest before it tapered into a halter.</p><p>Oliver wore his uniform of black; black suit and black shirt with the top two buttons open.</p><p>Maxi and Rosa headed straight for the dancefloor which was a pit of half-naked bodies writing to pulse-thumping music.  But, Oliver steered Felicity towards the side, where the music faded somewhat and a booth sat roped off and emptied.  A man that looked almost identical to the other two at the doors glanced, just the once, at Oliver before he nodded.</p><p>“Is this for us?” Felicity asked, speaking the words into Oliver’s ear as her body pressed against his.<br/>His fingertips traced slowly up her spine before he whispered his response the same way, “take a seat.”</p><p>Felicity slipped into the booth and Oliver soon followed, sliding along beside her.  The air was electric but still the biggest spark that Felicity felt was when Oliver rested his hand on her bare knee.  He was looking elsewhere, into the crowd, as though keeping a watchful eye on his ward, Maxi, and the simple action felt more impulsive or reactionary than premediated.</p><p>A waitress who seemed to know better than to flirt with Oliver – <em>unlike Maria</em>, took their drink orders over the noise which had dissipated enough at the edges of the room to where they didn’t need to yell.  Oliver ordered a Black Russian, and Felicity opted for a Mojito as the humid air made her throat parched for something briskly refreshing; and something she could sip slowly.</p><p>She’d already opted for water at dinner earlier in the evening, and she had no intention of becoming intoxicated.  While it had only been six days since she’d walked into Oliver’s life; it felt like five days too many to be around these people.  She needed to find Alena, and they needed to leave.</p><p>The drinks arrived barely five minutes after they’d ordered them.  Oliver sipped at his with one hand holding his drink, the other left to rest on Felicity’s knee.  As Felicity took her first sip, a man approached them.  He was tall and slender, deep lines on his face led Felicity to the conclusion he was similar in age to Javier, but without any of the charisma the Cártel boss possessed.  His eyes were deep set and dark, though Felicity imagined in this lighting of smoky purple, she wouldn’t be able to decipher their colour even up close.  His hair too was ebony with greying sides that caught the light.  His mouth was tight and his back was rigid.</p><p>There was little more she could tell from him standing there, and when Oliver retracted his hand from Felicity’s leg and slid out of the booth, she knew his presence was unlike the man at the Italian restaurant some days’ ago; this man commanded respect, and Oliver wordlessly gave it to him.</p><p>“Not here,” Oliver said stoically, loud enough that Felicity’s straining ears heard him.<br/>Without a word, the man nodded to accept Oliver’s proposal, but he didn’t move from the spot where he stood.</p><p>Oliver leaned in close to Felicity, brushing his lips up her cheek until he reached her ear.  “Stay here, I’ll be back in a few moments.”  She heard neither fear nor anger in his tone; so whether the man in the carefully-tailored grey suit was a friend or foe, Felicity didn’t know.</p><p>She laced her fingers around her tall glass, letting the small beads of condensation bleed into her skin, as she nodded softly.</p><p>When he pulled back, Felicity saw Oliver smiling.</p><p>He walked away with the man, and Felicity watched for as long as she could until they went through a side door nearby.  She didn’t have enough time to process that she was now practically alone in an underground den where they knew Cártel members by sight, because shortly after Oliver left, Maxi and Rosa appeared, breathless and with a bottle of Barrique de Ponciano Porfidio tequila clutched in his hand.  Felicity knew enough to know that single bottle of amber-hued agape liquor would have paid her rent in Starling for a month.</p><p>There was no price tag, it seemed, that they weren’t willing to pay to satisfy their hedonism.<br/>She doubted there was any law that would stop them either.</p><p>Maxi tipped his head back and took a swallow of the elixir straight from the bottle, much to the delight of Rosa who was fanning sweat off her caramel shoulders. </p><p>They were happy.</p><p>Such a normal emotion for this abnormal world.</p><p>Maxi offered the bottle to Felicity, but she refused it with a kind smile and a small nod down to her own drink.  </p><p>Then, the young mobster in training said something Felicity wasn't expecting.<br/>“I've never seen him like this with anyone,” he remarked, loud enough to be heard above the pulsing and sexual evocative music.<br/>“Like what?” Felicity found herself asking.</p><p>“Happy.”  As the word flew from his mouth he laughed through a smile before he took another drink, then added, “you make him happy.”<br/>Her brow pinched, perplexed by both the idea it was even possible and the way Maxi expressed it so brightly.  Neither seemed in keeping with the soulless depravity that was the Cártel de la Sangre.</p><p>She was rendered mute, unsure how to react to his exclamation, but her silence didn't seem to bother the blue-eyed Maxi.<br/>“He smiles when he talks about you,” Maxi teased before Rosa playfully slapped his arm.<br/>Felicity's eyes dropped to the table before she idly stirred the straw through her drink.</p><p><em>Guilt.</em> She was feeling guilty.<br/><em>How was that even possible?</em></p><p>Oliver got what he wanted; her body to sate his desires.  And she got what she wanted, access to the other side of the fence.  He was incapable of happiness the way Maxi spoke of it.  They all were.  Their happiness hinged on the misery of another person, that was not true happiness; not even a little bit.</p><p>“Dance with us,” Rosa exclaimed after she took a swig of the expensive tequila.<br/>“I'll wait for Oliver,” Felicity replied, following with an apologetic smile.<br/>Rosa shrugged drunkenly before she took another drink and then Maxi's hand.</p><p>Maxi let himself be pulled towards the dance floor before he yelled back to Felicity, “I told him to marry you.”<br/>Then, with a broad smile still latched on his face, he disappeared into the crowd.</p><p>Felicity was granted only a moment to let the last words Maxi had said settle into her mind when she felt a brush of fingers down her arm.  She expected to see Oliver so she painted a smile on her lips before she looked up.</p><p>But, she didn’t find Oliver.  Instead, she found the unfamiliar face of a man.  He was well-groomed with a thin beard and deeply-tanned skin that lost much of its colour in the artificial light.  He was neither attractive, nor unattractive, but the clothes he wore; tight dark pants and a loose fitting shirt that appeared mauve in colour, looked expensive as did the gold chain he wore around his neck.  His smile was coy and assuming and his stance told Felicity that his demeanour was far from shy.</p><p>Aware that his fingers still rested on her arm, Felicity shifted deeper into the booth to escape it and hoped that the gesture made her point – she wasn’t interested.  If it did, he was not one to accept it, and instead of moving away, the man sat down, pressing the side of his body against Felicity.</p><p>“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he said, his lips close enough to her ear that she could smell the secretion of alcohol on his breath.<br/>She moved again, pressing her body into the wall to put space between them.<br/>He laughed, as though her rejection amused him.</p><p>He spoke with only a slight accent and despite his brown complexion, she imagined he too was a visitor to Sinaloa.</p><p>“Dance with me,” he growled, as some sort of display of sexual prowess.<br/>Felicity stared at him with emotionless eyes and straight lips.  “No thank you,” she answered brusquely.<br/>His mouth tightened; he no longer found her refusal amusing.<br/>“Come.”<br/>He took her hand, but Felicity pulled it back too quickly for him to stop it.<br/>“I said no,” she snapped before she searched into the fog of people and darkness to try and find Maxi.<br/>“What the fuck is with you bitch?” he spat as he squared up his shoulders and puffed out his chest.<br/>He was not impressively large, but he was certainly larger than her.  Felicity pushed her body against the wall, ignoring the discomfort that ached down her spine at the roughness of the brickwork against her skin.</p><p>He leaned forward and she slapped him roughly across the face, but even the shock of it didn’t stop him.  She felt his hand on her thigh, creeping higher with every sharp breath she took, before there was a sudden jolt and the man flung backwards out of the booth.</p><p>Catching her breath in quick, sharp intakes, Felicity looked up to see Oliver standing over the man.  She scurried to the edge of the booth just as Oliver spoke.<br/>“Lady said no,” he gritted, the vein at his temple thumping as though matching the beat of the music.<br/>“Who the fuck are you?” the other man demanded as he pulled himself to his feet.</p><p>“Doesn’t matter,” Oliver sneered.  “She said no, so fuck off.”<br/>The man straightened his designer shirt and shook off the moment with a jovial laugh.</p><p>It was only then that Oliver looked down at Felicity.  She couldn’t read his face; his expression refusing to give any emotion away.</p><p>Taking the perceived opportunity, the other man swung a tightly balled fist towards Oliver.  While a valiant attempt, the punch never made its target and Oliver caught his fist and twisted it causing the man to yelp in pain as his ulna snapped before the Cártel mobster mercilessly slammed the man’s face into the table, spilling the drinks and dropping the intruder to the floor.</p><p>“You want to get out of here?” Oliver asked, extending his hand towards Felicity.</p><p>She looked around at the carnage of the scene, but the most apparent thing was that no one, not a single person, even moved or acknowledged it.</p><p>She took his hand and nodded before she slid out from the booth and stepped over the groaning man.  <br/>“Let’s go.”</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. || rest</h2></a>
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<p>Sitting in his car and overlooking the city lights, it felt peaceful – almost serene, despite the blazing Police sirens sounding out in the distance.  The moon was hidden behind smoky clouds that looked ashen and foreboding in the Prussian blue sky.  They hadn’t spoken since leaving the club and they continued to sit silently when Oliver pulled off the road and stopped the car.</p>
<p>Felicity’s arms were coiled around her narrow waist and her breathing was shallow and noiseless as the silence began to take its toll on her psyche.  She was under no illusion that in the circles she now ran in, another man putting his arms on you was often treated as a failure by the woman involved; this in spite of the fact that most girls within the <em>Sangre</em> dressed how their men asked them to.</p>
<p>It was an unfair branding, but one you would be foolish not to believe prevailed.</p>
<p>Finally, it was Oliver who broke the silence.  “From now on, you’ll carry a gun with you when we’re out.”  <br/>His eyes stayed forward, numbly looking at the view, while his hands wrung around the leather steering wheel.  He was agitated, but his tone was stoic enough to cloud it.<br/>“Is that an order?” Felicity asked, soft and subdued but clear in her distaste; she was no wallflower and she was certain any attempt to appear like one at that moment would raise an alarm to Oliver.</p>
<p>He glanced her way, briefly, and only to offer one word in response, “Yes.”<br/>It was the first time he’d framed anything as an <em>order</em> and it was clear by the way his hands strangled the steering wheel, that he knew that too.</p>
<p>“Even if I could find somewhere to carry it,” she remarked, referring to the small dress she was wearing, “they wouldn’t exactly let me walk into these places with a loaded gun.”<br/>He kept his eyes forward, unengaged.  “If you’re with me they would.”</p>
<p>He didn’t need to elaborate.</p>
<p>“You would have had me shoot a drunk guy at a club just because he got a little handsy?” she tested him, looking for a slip in his restrained expression, a descent that never came. <br/>“Yes,” he answered.  It was not brash and his voice was not raised; it was honest – perhaps giving away that the thought had crossed his mind when he came across the sight.</p>
<p>The truth was, on seeing the man above Felicity, Oliver had in fact reached for his gun on instinct, his fingers brushing the edge of it as it sat in a holster he wore at his hip while his body was beset by rage.  In a breath, he’d flashed to an image of the man’s lifeless body slumped into the booth with his blood splattered across the veneer table and the brick wall.  So real was the taste of death on the air, moist and sickly, that he’d very nearly thought he’d already pulled the trigger.</p>
<p>But then he'd seen her, crimson nails and a flash of blonde hair, pushing away at the man, and he drew his hand back, regretful.  Unwilling, he was, to let her see him – all of him.  Unwilling to violate her perceived lightness with the nightmare of his shadowed rage.</p>
<p>Unwilling to stain her, inside and out. </p>
<p>She offered a small smile that Oliver witnessed out of the corner of his eye.  “That seems extreme,” she added.<br/>“You’ll carry one with you,” he reiterated, his tone level – almost instructional.  “If you don’t have a purse big enough then I’ll buy you one.”<br/>Felicity gazed out the side window and answered him with a heavy sigh.  “Okay.”<br/>They both turned their heads to face each other, and she saw in his expression something akin to nervousness.  “Okay?” he asked quietly.<br/>“You said it was an order, so okay,” Felicity replied.<br/>There was a small smile exposed at the corner of his lips, soft and genuine.  “Thank you.”</p>
<p>He returned only briefly to the view before he spoke again.  <br/>“There are four in this car, one under the dashboard on your side and one under your seat and there are two under mine.”<br/>With exception to the one under the dashboard, she already knew where the other three were kept.  But, to keep up appearances, Felicity nodded as Oliver spoke.<br/>“Is that all?” she asked, almost playfully, and his animated smile returned.<br/>“There is a high powered rifle in the trunk, but you won’t need that.”  His smiled faded and he returned to his stoic demeanour.  “In our bedroom there is one beside the bed on your side and one under the bed on my side.  There is one in the bathroom taped to the back of the toilet and one in the top drawer of my desk.”</p>
<p>When she didn’t reply, Oliver looked across the car at her.  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” he asked, gentle but firm.<br/>“That you own a lot of guns,” Felicity answered.<br/>“Megan,” he said sharply <br/>“Yes, I understand what you’re telling me, but not why,” she expressed, holding his attention with her eyes.<br/>But it lasted only a moment before he looked back out to the city.  “You need to know.”<br/>“Is there anything else I need to know?” Felicity enquired after a few seconds of silence passed.<br/>He shook his head lithely.  “Not at the moment.”</p>
<p>“So,” Felicity started with a pop of her lips.  “I have a question.”<br/>Oliver turned to face her, relaxing his grip on the steering wheel at the same time.<br/>“Chocolate or strawberry?” she asked as her head tipped to one side.<br/>He smiled, faint but there, “What?”<br/>“We passed a milkshake place on the way here and I want one,” Felicity answered with a whimsical shrug.<br/>“Chocolate.”  The change in topic had Oliver smiling as he answered her and then started the car.</p>
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<p>The neon green chairs and the stark white tables were all but empty in the milkshake bar.  LED billboards scrolled with specials and limited offers, while a young girl in a paper hat stood behind the counter tapping on her phone.  Another worker, a boy with gangly arms and a nervous smile, mopped the same spot on the floor with the enthusiasm of a wet towel.</p>
<p>It was near closing time and the only other people in the store were two young girls, dressed for a night on the town, despite not looking old enough to drink.  They would glance at Oliver and Felicity’s way, smile, whisper something to each other, and then giggle as they nursed two iced coffees.</p>
<p>Oliver’s jacket was around Felicity’s shoulders and he’d taken off his holster in the car, leaving it there.  There was a little noise from patrons of the liquor store next door and two cars had pulled out of the petrol station fast enough to cause their tires to spin, but all that aside, it was reasonably peaceful as ambient Latin music played through the speaker system – slightly out of synch with the video playing on a small monitor in one corner.</p>
<p>In front of them was a rather impressive burger Oliver was busy munching his way through, a plastic bowl of fries, and two indulgent milkshakes – both chocolate.  When neither of them had a mouthful of food, they spoke about Máxi’s flair for dancing and Oliver relayed a few stories of the same vain.</p>
<p>“Will he be finding his own way home tonight?” Felicity teased as she spryly stirred her straw through the icy drink.<br/>Oliver laughed before he dabbed a paper napkin to the corner of his mouth.  His laugh drew the young girls’ attention and one of them smiled warmly at Felicity, in a manner that suggested she hoped to be one day sitting in exactly the same position.</p>
<p>Men like Oliver seemed to be on the same level as a popstar; much like Rosa had remarked, the lifestyle drew them in like it was some cheap romance novel where the wife of a mafia boss was treated with respect and dripping with expensive jewellery.  </p>
<p>It was hardly realistic.</p>
<p>Even Gloria wore the scars few spoke about.</p>
<p>“We’ll collect him once he’s done in the club,” Oliver remarked as he reached into his pocket for his phone.<br/>“Finished dancing? That could be all night,” Felicity replied with a playfully tenacious smirk.<br/>“Finished doing lines,” Oliver corrected, and she could tell by his demeanour that it wasn’t a joke.</p>
<p>However, if Felicity was being honest with herself, Oliver’s candour wasn’t surprising. <br/>“He doesn’t seem like he belongs in this world,” Felicity commented, casual but cautious with her words.<br/>“That’s because he doesn’t.  He’s living fast and loose because he has a fictional idea of what this <em>world</em> is,” Oliver replied, more unguarded truth in his words than Felicity was expecting.  “But,” he added with a lethargic sigh, “he is safe where I left him.  They’re all too scared of his father to try anything.  That will keep him safe for now.”<br/>“For now?” Felicity queried, but Oliver could only answer with a small smile.  <br/>“Allegiances change in this world.”<br/>Felicity watched as Oliver’s eyes focused on his food; it was a clear indicator that line of discussion had, for now, run its course. </p>
<p>“Do you do lines?” she asked instead, unsure what answer such a probing question would garner her.<br/>“Not anymore,” Oliver answered honestly.  “But once upon a time.”<br/>Instinctively he brushed a knuckle under his nose as he spoke.  There wasn’t much to remember from those early days, but to prove himself as an initiate, he’d partaken of his fair share.</p>
<p>After all, he had come to them as a disgraced detective; sure, one that had kept their supply lines flowing into the upper states, but a <em>Policía</em> all the same.  Taking cocaine had only been one of many lines he had crossed to get to where he stood that day, including eliminating his predecessor who had fallen out of favour with the Cártel.</p>
<p>It had been a complicated mark as the man was Angel’s second cousin and ‘friend’ insofar as that word carried you.  But, his betrayal and ultimate execution had come from Javier and was enacted without mercy – two bullets to the heart, messy, slow, but where death was unavoidable.  Angel had been there, they all had, but he remained tight-lipped when Javier demanded if any man would be willing to vouch for the life of the other.</p>
<p>Not a single one did, despite sharing drinks, cigars, and women with the man.  He died on the concrete floor of a basement, with every finger broken and in a pool of his own blood.</p>
<p><em>Allegiances changed</em>.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you anymore?” Felicity asked, tentatively glancing up to catch Oliver’s glazy eyes.<br/>“It made me numb, at the time that was what I needed.”<br/>She pried a little deeper.  “But now?”<br/>“It’s not,” he answered with a tip of his head and a hidden smile.</p>
<p>That was all Felicity would be getting out of him at that moment, so talk soon turned to the party for Javier the following night.  When Oliver remarked that it was on the boss' luxury yacht, Felicity flinched.<br/>“I get seasick,” she remarked, pushing her nearly-finished milkshake to the side – there was no way her little black dress would allow her to have anymore.<br/>“I know,” Oliver remarked, picking at the few fries left in the bowl.  “I got you some pills from the pharmacy.”<br/>She laughed, not at all expected, but there was just something so endearing about the gesture, and something altogether ludicrous at the thought of Oliver walking into a pharmacy and picking out seasickness tablets with a gun strapped to his chest and a list of mob-chores to do.</p>
<p>“Didn’t you have a trick for that?” Felicity questioned as he graciously offered her the last two fries.<br/>She ate one but offered the remaining one to Oliver who took it and gestured with it as he spoke.  “I did,” he commented dryly, but with a hidden smirk.  <br/>“Are you going to tell me what that is?”<br/>He finished the fry and sat back with his arms folded across his chest and a smile on his face.</p>
<p>“Sex,” he said after he swallowed.<br/>Felicity laughed once again, airy and infectious.  “I see.” <br/>“The kind that makes your breathing thin and your toes curl,” he continued.<br/>“Uh-huh,”<br/>“The slow kind where I use my tongue a lot.”<br/>“And that works?” Felicity asked as she leaned forward with her elbows balancing on the edge of the table.<br/>“Well if the tablets don’t work, I guess we’ll find out.”</p>
<p>The last few minutes ticked over and at 10pm, Felicity and Oliver left, but not without Oliver leaving a sizeable tip under the empty fries’ basket.</p>
<p>Oliver followed Felicity around to the passenger side door, leaning his body over hers to reach for the door handle.  His chest brushed against hers and a shiver cascaded like a warm breeze down her spine.  The air was tense and still between them, as though they were both holding their breaths, afraid of what might happen should they <em>not.</em></p>
<p>Her eyes wandered up his neck to his full and engorged throat, sitting on the precipice of a swallow, and in the stark white light of the streetlamp above them, she watched as his lips dimpled with a faint smile.  His skin was dewy and his lip wet... <em>Waiting.</em></p>
<p>She tipped her chin up and kissed him softly at the corner where she saw the glimmer of a smile.  It was soft and angelic, but it froze Oliver in place, tentative and unsure.  Her kiss felt different to them both.  His shadowy eyes dropped to hers and for a moment she saw into the depths of his soul, the parts he buried – the fear, the pain, the regret – the purpose.  She saw more than who he was, or even who he had been, she saw – brief and fleeting – who he <em>needed</em> to become.</p>
<p>Instinctively, she kissed him a second time, her lips capturing his softly, and while they barely touched, the pull was magnetic and impossible to fight.</p>
<p>Felicity knew herself at that moment.<br/>She knew it wasn’t about information.<br/>It wasn’t for Megan.</p>
<p>She kissed him because she wanted to.<br/>No lies.  No pretence.  No disguise.<br/>She wanted to.</p>
<p>His jacket slipped off one of her shoulders as her hand moved to his face.  She felt him sigh against her fragile lips as the tips of her fingers trickled down his jaw.</p>
<p>He wanted it too.</p>
<p>The sound of his phone ringing spread them apart with pangs of guilt neither could admit to.  He glanced down at the screen, looking at it for much longer than he needed, simply to avoid her searching eyes.</p>
<p>It was Máxi, he was ready to be picked up.</p>
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<p>On the drive back to the compound the stereo playing softly did little to drown out the amorous sounds emanating from the backseat of the Audi Spyder.  Felicity covered her faint laughs with the back of her hand as she dare not look over the seat, afraid to discover whatever position Máxi and Rosa were in.</p>
<p>“You’re cleaning my fucking car tomorrow,” Oliver announced loudly over the groans and moans.<br/>Máxi’s head appeared through the gap in the front seats.  His smile was broad and impish.  “Most of our clothes are still on,” he chortled before Rosa pulled him back and the sexual sounds flared up once more.<br/>“Keep all of your fucking clothes on you son of a bitch,” Oliver teased before he leaned towards the stereo and turned the music up louder.<br/>Felicity offered him a smile and a hapless shrug while Oliver rolled his eyes on account of the two in the backseat.</p>
<p>“Wait!” Máxi bellowed as his arm shot out between the front seats and switched off the music.  His head soon followed.  “I want to show Rosa Dad’s yacht.”<br/>Oliver laughed quietly as he glanced at Felicity and again rolled his eyes.  “She’ll see it tomorrow night,” he replied sternly.<br/>“But I want to show her now,” Máxi answered, the inflection of his voice sounding more and more like a toddler to Oliver’s stern response.</p>
<p>Oliver sighed, before he took a sharp left and headed towards the marina, much to Máxi’s loud and delighted applause.</p>
<p>The road was clearly a shortcut, and there was little to be said of the dusty scenery that flew by them as Oliver navigated the tight turns like a rally driver.  But, his body stiffened in the leather seat when a pair of bright headlights pulled up tightly behind him.</p>
<p>There were two bright flashes as the driver behind them flared his high beams on and off in an attempt to get Oliver’s attention – something he’d had since he followed them down the near-deserted road.</p>
<p>Given the fact that the driver could have already shot at them or run them off the road, Oliver considered they merely wanted his attention – not exactly the smartest move, but one he didn’t, at that moment, consider particularly threatening.</p>
<p>Much to Felicity’s surprise, Oliver pulled the car over into a dusty sidling but left the engine running.  He pulled a gun from under his seat, checked it, and tucked it into the front of his waistband before he turned to Felicity.</p>
<p>“Stay in the car,” he said stiffly, glancing over his shoulder to the backseat as to ensure Máxi and Rosa understood the instruction was for them too.</p>
<p>Before he opened the door, Oliver glanced in the side mirror and noticed only one person had exited the other car and from a brief check of the rearview mirror, he didn’t see anyone else in the car behind.  He took the torch from the glove box near Felicity’s knees and a second, smaller, pistol from under the dash.</p>
<p>After another quick study of the dim reflection in the wing mirror, Oliver threw the door open and shone the torch directly at the other man’s face, with a loaded gun perched above it and his finger poised on the trigger.</p>
<p>He spoke in harsh and angry Spanish, far too fast for Felicity to easily understand, though she assumed – rightly – that Oliver was demanding to know who the person was.</p>
<p>The voice that returned was trembling, angry, but not enough to hide fear in his tone, and his name was Miguel.</p>
<p>Felicity watched as Oliver lowered his weapon and shone the torch away from the man’s face; he clearly recognised him and his voice instantly shifted.<br/>“What the fuck are you doing coming up on me like that Miguel?” Oliver remarked, his tone teasing and his demeanour much calmer than it had been a few moments before.</p>
<p>“I trusted you, I gave you what you wanted, risked everything.” The man’s fractured English cut through the still night air, where only a small tepid breeze entered the car through Oliver’s open door.<br/>“Miguel, calm down, come by tomorrow and we’ll talk,” Oliver insisted, his tone clear and direct – a definite trade back to his Police training.<br/>“No, no, it’s too late for that, I risked my job, I got your drugs through, and now you fire me? And they’re after me.”<br/>Oliver’s brow twitched and Felicity saw it in the bright, hazy yellow of his torchlight – he didn’t know what the man was talking about.</p>
<p>Felicity twisted her head to see if she could get a better view of the man in his gauzy headlights, but all she could see was the shadow of a tall man who was moving back and forth a few inches at a time; his agitation clear.  Then, his hand lifted and she saw something metallic and cylindrical in his hand – a gun.</p>
<p>“Miguel put it down,” Oliver warned as he started to raise his own.<br/>He still wasn’t threatened by the man who he’d shared a beer with many times in the past, but whatever brought Miguel there that night, clearly made him fearful enough to arm himself.</p>
<p>What happened next seemed to happen like snapshots at two-second intervals in Felicity’s mind.  Like the bright spaces between a flashing black light, where only slithers of a moment is caught.</p>
<p>A car door opening; heavy enough to jar the car.<br/>Another raised voice, Máxi; drunk and boisterous.<br/>Oliver shouting.  <em>Get in.</em><br/>A crack erupting in the night, brutal and violent against the calm, starry scenery.</p>
<p>A bullet shot<br/>Followed closely by a second.<br/>A thud.</p>
<p>“Máxi, what did you do?”</p>
<p>Rosa screamed as she threw open her passenger side door and Felicity instinctively moved as fast as she could to stop the woman, but not before they both saw the man lying in the dirt, his hands clutching his throat as dark liquid coated his fingers and spilled down into the ground.</p>
<p>It was the stranger; <em>Miguel.</em></p>
<p>“He was going to shoot you,” Máxi stammered as the smoking gun lay limp at his hip.<br/>“He wasn’t going to fucking shoot me,” Oliver snapped back, fury twisting his expression as he tore a hand through his hair.</p>
<p>“He had a gun.”  Máxi’s voice was shaking, his tone unsure, as though he was starting to see in the eerie white headlights, exactly what he’d done.<br/>“We all have guns,” Oliver spoke sadly before he knelt beside the gasping man.</p>
<p>His lips tightened and his eyes drew closed for only a moment before he stood up.<br/>“He won’t make it so the least you can do is finish the job,” he said coldly at the youngest Álvarez.<br/>Máxi lifted his gun but hesitated before he lowered it again.</p>
<p>“You want to carry that thing around, then you better know what you’re doing with it.  Finish what <em>you</em> started.”  Oliver’s voice rose, the depth of it echoing off the valley walls.</p>
<p>Felicity stood at a distance, watching the exchange, as Rosa leaned towards her, sobbing silently as a gust of wind took her chestnut hair and veiled it across her face.  Much like Máxi, it was as though <em>finally</em> Rosa saw first-hand the brutal truth about a world she had seemed to hold in austere regard for far too long.</p>
<p>Oliver paced heavy tracks in the dirt sidling making dust clouds form around his feet before he stopped near Miguel’s head, raised his gun, whispered something lost on the wind, and pulled the trigger.</p>
<p>The single gunshot made Rosa jump, but when Oliver glanced her way he noticed Felicity staring blankly at him.</p>
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  <em>At least now she knew the monster she shared a bed with.</em>
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  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p>
<p>Oliver had worked the next 20 minutes with unflinching purpose as he loaded the dead body into his car and turned it towards the embankment.  He wore gloved hands and no expression as he emptied a canister of gasoline into the car and positioned it right on the edge.  He drew a cross over his body; forehead to chest then left shoulder to the right and lit a match which he tossed in through the open front window.</p>
<p>The gasoline ignited with a blinding orange flame and a sound like a sharp gust of wind that furiously inhaled, and as the flames began to swallow up the interior and shatter the glass, Oliver pressed his boot to the back bumper and pushed.  It was all the momentum the car needed to tip over the embankment, where gravity and a sharp slope would do the rest.</p>
<p>Felicity watched in her side mirror as the torched car disappeared down the hill.  She imagined the smell of the gasoline on the air and felt the heat of the flames as it devoured everything it touched until she couldn’t see a trace of it any longer.</p>
<p>They never drove to the marina and the drive back to the compound was taken in silence.</p>
<p>
  <strong>.|.</strong>
</p>
<p>The sound of the door locking behind them might as well have been an earthquake, the way it made Felicity startle.  </p>
<p>Death; it had its own taste, its own unique smell.  One Felicity, for all her bravado, had not experienced before. But, the longer the hallowed image stayed in her mind, the more Felicity swore the scent had followed them all the way to Oliver’s room.</p>
<p>She stood, as if frozen by an invisible wall caging her in, in the middle of his room, her eyes latched to the painting that had captivated her once before in that same spot.</p>
<p>The colours still fought, but that night, in the dim amber threads from the lamps behind her, Felicity saw the brushwork with a sadness she had not noticed before.  Perhaps, instead of dominance, the colours were fighting for survival.</p>
<p>Two fingers brushed down her spine and reactively, Felicity shivered.</p>
<p>“Sorry.”  His tone was tinted with sorrow and framed with regret, and the word itself was so faint that, for a moment, Felicity was unsure if her mind was simply playing tricks on her in hearing it.</p>
<p>She felt a sob rise in her throat and with her nails digging brutally into her palms, she begged it back down, swallowing it like glass.</p>
<p>Felicity turned on the spot, slow and cautious until her chest met with his, and yet her eyes stayed downward, afraid of what he might see if she raised them.</p>
<p>“Megan.”<br/>Her name, breathy and gravelled.  <em>Did speaking it pain him?</em><br/>He trapped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and gently raised it until her pale eyes met his shadowy ones.</p>
<p>“I'm sorry,” he whispered and Felicity bit the inside of her cheeks to still the quiver threatening her lips.</p>
<p>His breath was achingly slow, his lips so close to her that the warmth of his expelled air ghosted across her mouth.</p>
<p>But, he kept his distance, drawing his eyes up the features of her face before he stepped back and his hand dropped from her chin.</p>
<p>Her feet were anchored to the ground, even though it felt like her knees swayed, unrestrained.  And, she could only watch in silence as Oliver walked around her, took the leather gloves from his pocket, and laid them on his desk.</p>
<p>A gun followed.<br/>Then a second.</p>
<p>Until finally, with a heavy sigh, Oliver placed his hands on the bevelled edge and his shoulders slumped with an invisible but crippling weight.</p>
<p>“Sorry for what?” Felicity asked, a tentative shiver in her voice.<br/>Oliver kept his back to her but his head rose and his eyes watched the wall.<br/>“Everything.”</p>
<p>A few steps took Felicity towards Oliver before she rested her palms in the centre of his back.  Beneath his shirt she felt his muscles constrict into tight threads as she drove her hands up towards his shoulders.</p>
<p>As her thumbs brushed against his neck, Oliver tightened his grip around the edge of his desk.  His eyes closed, weighted and weary before her lips gently caressed the side of his neck.</p>
<p>Only a moment after her lips had left a scolded kiss on his neck, they were gone; leaving an ache in their absence.</p>
<p>Her fingers moved up the placket of his shirt, ambled but nimbly unbuttoning it.  Oliver let her slender, gentle fingers guide the shirt off his body and he relished the small kiss she marked the cusp of his shoulder with.</p>
<p>Then, she was gone.<br/>Just a ghost of her fingertips left on his skin like tiny, electric pulses.</p>
<p>He drew a breath, deliberate and deep; filling his lungs to capacity.  He glanced down his chest, scars and tattoos had changed the landscape of it long ago.</p>
<p>So long.</p>
<p>When he finally turned around, Oliver found Felicity sitting in their bed, her naked shoulders peeking above the sheet which she tucked across her chest.</p>
<p>He opened his mouth to speak, the night still weighing heavily on his reactions.</p>
<p>“Rest,” she pleaded as her eyes dropped to his empty side of the bed.</p>
<p>As he walked, he toed off his shoes and loosened his pants, and by the time he reached the bed, Oliver wore only cotton boxer briefs and a troubled expression.</p>
<p>Wordlessly he sunk into the bed and for the first time, he found a level of comfort in the embrace of the mattress.</p>
<p>He curled his body towards her, vulnerable, and she nestled in close.  His ear lay close enough to her chest to hear the faint echo of her heartbeat and as her fingers combed gently across his scalp, Oliver closed his eyes.</p>
<p>“Rest,” she breathed as she watched his rippled back expand with each breath.</p>
<p>Even monsters needed to rest.<br/>Perhaps, his would that night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. || love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you believe that being asked to wear a mask in public infringes on your personal rights and/or you believe that the message should be "all lives matter"... you're truly not welcome here.</p><p>Full offence.</p><p>Please leave.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>The marina was just as lavish as Felicity had expected it to be.  The state of Sinaloa was not without both its rich and its poor and there was a clear and very decisive line between each, while the middle ground to either way of life was rarely seen.  In Sinaloa there were the haves and the have nots.</p><p>Javier Álvarez was a <em>have</em>.</p><p>The boat itself was impressive, even from the outside.  It stood nearly 60 metres long and had six decks; according to Máxi.</p><p>Also, according the youngest mobster, it was fully loaded with two bars, five bedrooms – two of which were large staterooms, a cinema, a restaurant-level galley, jet skis, and, of course, a large Jacuzzi.</p><p>The music that was emanating from the super yacht was a hybrid of Latin and electronica and blasted, unrepentantly, through the still night, owning it.  For a moment, Felicity imagined what sort of person would call noise control on the party of a mob kingpin, but of course – no one ever would, and even if they did, no one was taking that call.</p><p>There was an ambling crowd on the main deck as Felicity, Oliver, Máxi, and Rosa arrived, and at a guess, Felicity would have counted around 50 people between the two main decks.  Security was tight and heavily armed, but the presence of semi-automatics didn’t seem to dampen any one’s celebratory spirit and the atmosphere was electric with revelry and the sound of popping champagne.</p><p>As they mingled into the crowd, Máxi and Rosa veered towards the deck bar, while Oliver led Felicity to a spot far enough away from the crowd and the music, that she could hear the gentle hum of the engines churning water below them.</p><p>Tentatively, his fingers brushed across her bracelet and floated down towards the tips of her fingers before he leaned in close enough that his lips ghosted her cheek.  <br/>“Stay with me tonight,” he whispered as the wind caught a wisp of her hair and ticked it across her face.<br/>The rest of her hair was loosely secured near her crown and she pinned the stray tendril to her temple as she nodded softly to Oliver’s gentle request while her eyes scanned the crowd.</p><p>There was faces she knew, but many she didn’t.</p><p>However, amongst them all were a few glimpses of faces she had been waiting for.</p><p>The Chief of Police knocking back a flute of expensive champagne.<br/>A well-respected politician with a young woman draped like a puppet over his lap.</p><p>The State’s wealthy and elite, all with their secrets, gathered in one place.</p><p>She felt the curious eyes of a few as Oliver hedged her in against the chrome railing and she offered a pouted sigh as her fingers trickled down the back of his ebony suit jacket.  He softly kissed the seam of her ear before he dragged his lips down the side of her neck, half an inch at a time.</p><p>It was enough of a display for now.<br/>She was with him.</p><p>But, it wasn’t all simply for display.</p><p>He skimmed his fingers up her svelte arms, creating a wick of goosebumps in their wake, before he reached her slender shoulder.  His lips left off her neck and he gazed down at her, his eyes deep pools of blue that were focused on only her.  </p><p>The dress she wore that night looked even better on her in that moment than he remembered it in the store.  The red was deep and rich in the dim light, but the embellishment on the bodice caught the light so perfectly that it stole his attention with just the smallest glint.  The skirt brushed against his legs as he stood as close as possible, and when a gentle breeze caught it, the silk chiffon danced in haunting and seductive waves.</p><p>He longed to touch it, to feel the fabric’s gauzy softness between the rough pads of his fingers and map it against the smoothness of Felicity’s ivory skin, or feel it knot in his fist, delicate and fragile, as he worshipped the body it decorated.</p><p>In another life.<br/>In another world.</p><p>Bitterly, Oliver pulled himself back and the air that sliced between them felt like a bitter reminder that there was no other life, and no other world.</p><p>“Stay with me,” he mouthed over the pulsing music that seemed to have grown louder.<br/>Felicity nodded as a smile lifted her scarlet lips and curled the fringes.</p><p>There was a flurry of activity as the last of the guests arrived and the gangway was lifted.  The atmosphere grew more electric as Javier appear on the deck above with a glass raised towards the sky.</p><p>“Let’s take this party into international waters!” he announced in his trademark husky tone.</p><p>The crowd erupted into cheers while scantily clad women served drinks with silent expressions, most of whom seemed too young to even be there, and soon after the yacht was pulling away from the dock and heading out into the ocean ahead of them.</p><p>As the boat glided through the waves like a warm knife through butter, Oliver entwined his fingers into Felicity and they headed inside.  Máxi and Rosa appeared with drinks and the rosy cheeks of a couple who had already had a few more.</p><p>Felicity glanced down at her and Oliver's linked fingers, the sheer size of his hand swelled in comparison to hers, and where his cuff lifted slightly she could see the vines that twisted around his wrist.  Yet, with all that strength, he held her hand gently, it was not possession - it was safety.</p><p>In any other world his gesture would have been innocent, holding his girlfriend's hand.  But, to the ravenous and hedonistic eyes that circled them, it meant more.</p><p>To have her, a fool would have to go through him.</p><p>The inside was just as opulent as one would have expected with luxuriant ashen carpet accented with gold.  A gently-cascading waterfall trickled down stone walls on either side of a catwalk that aesthetically bridged the outside deck and the interior.  It was a line that visually navigated the entire living room area.</p><p>Recessed lights gave just enough of an amber-hued glow to showcase the sleek and modern lines of the first formal space they walked into.  Fresh cut flowers in white porcelain vases added a touch of realism to the splendour and large L-shaped couches on either side spoke to both design and comfort with their bouffant white leather cushions and wide square arms.</p><p>Decadence was crafted into every corner, from the pale wooden ceilings to the ivory walls.  Large windows on either side showcased the smooth speed it could travel and the art work of warmly bright landscapes seemed to be picked by someone with a taste in vivid contrast to the dark, rich colours that decorated the living areas at the compound.</p><p>There were fewer people inside and the four of them moved easily through the same as the music seemed to fade to ambience the deeper they got.  Máxi was gingerly discussing the rooms as he walked a step behind them and Felicity glanced to the side as he mentioned the boardroom while they passed through the same.  </p><p>The room was just wide enough to comfortably fit a heavily polished walnut table surrounded by 12 cloudy-grey chairs.  Above the table hung a large oval chandelier made of glass shards, and three small and clearly decorative sculptures sat on a matching side table nearby.</p><p>But, it was not any of those perfectly curated touches that caught Felicity’s eye.  Rather, it was the menacing stare of Ángel standing across the other side of the room.  Adriana was at his side, wearing a silver dress that accentuated her slim figure and caramel skin.  Her hair was straight and lightened a few shades and her stance was one of fragility, perhaps fear.</p><p>But, Ángel's coldness could be felt across the room and the slither of a smile on his haunting expression cast a shiver down Felicity's spine.</p><p>Even more telling though, was where his looming stare was directed.  It wasn't Felicity, rather he was staring almost straight through her.</p><p>He was looking at Rosa.<br/>His brother’s girl.</p><p>No one else seemed to notice his foreboding presence, and Oliver walked on without pausing, trailing Felicity along behind him.  Once through the boardroom, Felicity paused long enough to glance over her shoulder and note, with respite, that Ángel hadn’t followed them.</p><p>The room where they stood would have been best described as a foyer.  Despite being in the middle of the boat and not having a natural light source, felt spacious and airy as the focus was clearly directed towards the glass elevator that passed between the decks and the broad spiral staircase that coiled around the back of it.</p><p>Máxi busied himself extolling many of the yacht’s features to Rosa, who was listening adoringly while he spoke about the two VIP cabins, a salon, the kitchen, and a deck with two jet skis at the other end of the ship.  His animated voice carried the tone of an excited child praising the wonders of his new toy.</p><p>It was neither innocence nor ignorance.</p><p>Parting ways again, Máxi shuffled Rosa into the elevator to go down, while Oliver guided Felicity up the main stairwell.  Alone at the midway point between the two decks, Oliver stopped Felicity with a gentle tug on her hand.  Standing on the stair above him, she turned to look at him with a faint smile on her full lips.</p><p>His eyes were turbulent and the dimple near the crease of his lip was fraught with a nervous energy, almost like he wanted to speak, but he couldn’t.</p><p>Another couple passed them and Oliver pressed his body into Felicity’s, pinning her to the wall.  She still stood a fraction higher than him when they were once again alone and the storm in his eyes had not diminished.</p><p>“What is it?” she asked, ghosting the fingers of her free hand up his arm.<br/>He opened his mouth to speak, but they were interrupted before he could find the words.</p><p>“My two favourite people,” Adrian announced as he stumbled up the stairs.<br/>A petite woman with Asian features and flawless skin hung from his arm with a smile that appeared both genuine and pleasant.  But, Felicity couldn’t help but wonder if she had any clue what world she’d ventured into.</p><p>Oliver glared, wordless, as Adrian lifted Felicity’s hand to his lips and gave it a feathery peck before he smirked, puckishly, at his stoic <em>brother</em>.</p><p>“Has Oliver told you how big the beds are in this boat?” Adrian asked with a whimsical smile as he impishly slapped Oliver’s shoulder.<br/>“He has not,” Felicity answered with a coy smile of her own; <em>playing her part.</em><br/>“They’re massive,” Adrian answered somewhat innocuously before he squeezed the shoulder of the woman beside him.  “I’m sure you could fit four people on them no problem.  Even moving around a whole lot, I doubt anyone would fall off.”</p><p>Oliver’s lips tightened but relaxed when Felicity gave his hand a gentle squeeze.</p><p>“Perhaps someone <em>else</em> will be willing to test your theory on the bed size,” Felicity hummed as she cocked her head a little to one side.<br/>Adrian laughed brightly as he once again slapped Oliver’s shoulder.  “I like this one, she’s feisty.”</p><p>He took a step up and reached his arm towards Felicity before brushing the tips of his fingers across her ear.  When his hand returned, he was holding a small bag of white powder, undoubtedly cocaine.<br/>“Magic,” he gushed as he dropped the clear bag into Felicity’s palm.  “Just because the old American here doesn’t partake anymore, doesn’t mean you should miss out.”</p><p>Felicity closed her dainty fingers around the bag and smiled.  “Thank you for your concern Dolos.”<br/>Adrian’s smile grew, “the Greek spirit of trickery,” he remarked coyly, “I’m more of a Prometheus fan myself.”<br/>“The God who stole fire, and had his immortal liver eaten by an eagle every day?”<br/>“Sounds like a party,” he chortled.  “Speaking of which,” he continued looking at Oliver, “Zeus himself was looking for you, he’s on the sun deck.”</p><p>
  <br/>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The sun deck was two decks above, and Oliver and Felicity traversed the same without a word passing between them.  Whatever it was that Oliver had struggled with saying before Adrian appeared, he’d set aside, at least for then.</p><p>The sun deck was the second from the top and was where the wheelhouse was located at the front of the ship.  Aside from the foyer and a private bathroom, the deck was mostly outside, boasting panoramic views of the ocean and the distant glint of the city they’d left behind.  There were only a few allowed that far up, and at most, the deck had around 10 people hanging around.</p><p>There was a bar tended by a tall man with eyes focused on his task, and nowhere else.  The kind of staff a mobster would employ – the kind that kept their head down and their ears closed to anything that didn’t concern them.</p><p>The deck was split level and a Jacuzzi bridging the two.  There were two girls Felicity didn’t recognise in it, together with a man she recognised as the Politician she’d seen earlier, as content as the Cheshire Cat.</p><p>The wind was cool, but pleasant, as Oliver walked them towards the edge where Javier stood talking with Nicolás and Matías.  Tensions seemed frayed and so Oliver steered them away, towards the other side of the deck where Carmen was nursing a drink and looking out towards the disappearing harbour.</p><p>“A drink?” Oliver asked and Felicity nodded lightly.<br/>He found himself touching the back of his knuckles gently to Felicity’s ruddy cheek before he backed away and headed towards the bar.</p><p>“Strange,” Carmen said with a smile over the rim of her cocktail glass before she took a long sip from the straw.<br/>Felicity chuckled softly into the crisp evening as her palms rested on the chrome railing.  The noise from the deck below was clear over the churning water, but the volume had settled somewhat, making for a more pleasant atmosphere.</p><p>“What's strange?” Felicity asked after she inhaled the salty air deeply.<br/>“It's almost like he cares about you,” the brunette remarked offhandedly.</p><p>Felicity blew out an exhale and watched a small spiral of warm air dissipate ahead of her.<br/>“It's okay, he should,” Carmen added with a shrug under her black dress.<br/>Felicity found herself chewing her tongue to keep her feelings masked behind a non-descript smile; but given the chance she would have told Carmen that she deserved that too.</p><p>But she guarded her words.</p><p>
  <em>Allegiances change.</em>
</p><p>Carmen took another drink before she continued, keeping her eyes tracking the waning shoreline.  “That's why she's jealous, because she wants that.”<br/>“Adriana?” Felicity asked hesitantly.<br/>But, her guess was right and Carmen’s nod cemented it.</p><p>“She cares for Ángel?” Felicity wondered.<br/>Carmen's slender fingers adorned with a few silver rings tucked her dark hair behind her ear as a few tendrils floated across her bronzed cheeks.<br/>“She's obsessed with him,” she paused, unfinished, “I'm not sure if that's love.”<br/>“It's not,” Felicity commented honestly.<br/>Carmen's response was a soft and timid laugh.  “I don't think any of us know what love is.  But,” she turned towards Felicity as she rested her elbow on the same railing, “whatever Oliver feels for you might be the closest we get.  That's what she wants.  She would do anything for him.”</p><p>“And you wouldn't?” Felicity enquired delicately, ensuring their quiet voices didn't travel.<br/>Unexpectedly, Carmen laughed, loud enough that it carried on a breeze.</p><p>The candidness of Carmen's reply gave Felicity an opening she took.  “Why do you stay?”<br/>Carmen's umber eyes searched the hazy horizon of stars before a tight puff of air passed through her lips, resigned... fated.</p><p>“There is only one way out of here,” she commented, the inevitability of her voice almost cruel.  “I'm not ready for that just yet.”<br/>“Are you afraid of him?”<br/>A small smile lifted her lips but faded just a quickly.  “I should be, but even fear is an emotion and I swore he'd not get a single one from me.”</p><p>Felicity opened her mouth to speak but Carmen silenced her with a faint shake of her head.  The younger brunette turned on her gladiator heels and balanced her elbows on the railing behind her as she scanned the small crowd on the sun deck.</p><p>Felicity mirrored the same stance and as her eyes grazed through the crowd she saw an unfamiliar face walking towards Javier.</p><p>She walked with an air of confidence that most women Felicity had seen did not possess.  Her emerald dress was expensive and luxurious, yet she wore the beautifully tailored satin evening gown with an elegance that was rare.</p><p>Her dark hair was cut in a blunt bob that skimmed her jaw and her nude lips wore a poised smile.</p><p>“Who is that?” Felicity asked curiously.<br/>“Selene,” Carmen responded almost immediately, “Javier's mistress.”</p><p>Felicity's brow pinched as she watched the way Javier reacted to the dark-haired beauty with olive skin.</p><p>“She's different to the rest of us if that's what you're thinking,” Carmen commented with an airy laugh.<br/>“But Gloria?”<br/>“Hates her, but wouldn't dare touch her,” Carmen interjected.  “You won't see Selene at the compound and she has her own money.”</p><p>Felicity nipped at the edge of her lip as she watched the two interact.<br/>“Are you wondering why he's with Gloria instead of Selene?” Carmen asked astutely.<br/>“A little,” Felicity bluntly replied.<br/>“Rumour says Javier asked her to marry him but Selene said no, she loves him but not what he is.  I think she reminds him of Máxi's mother.”</p><p>Carmen took a long drink before she pushed off the railing.  “Rumour also tells it that she decorated this entire boat.  God, I bet Gloria is livid Javier's party is on it,” Carmen remarked with a wicked smile.</p><p>Javier embraced the younger woman, gentle and affectionately.</p><p>He loved her.</p><p>
  <em>Love was possible in this world?</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Oliver returned with two drinks in hand; a tumbler of what looked to be whiskey and ice for himself, and a blue cocktail with a slice of candied orange served in a martini glass for her.  She took it with a courteous little smile.<br/>“It’s blue,” she remarked with a mischievous wink.<br/>“What can I say?” Oliver purred as a faint smile wicked up one corner of his lips, “I’m fascinated by the colour.”<br/>Carmen brushed her fingertips across Felicity’s elbow as she moved away, and when the two shared a quick look, Carmen offered a knowing smile and an even more knowing wink.</p><p>
  <em>He cares for you.</em>
</p><p>The words rolled over in Felicity’s conscience as she brought the drink to her lips and took an ambled sip.</p><p>“Did I interrupt?” Oliver asked as Felicity tasted the gin on her tongue.<br/>She offered him a faint, reverential smile that her heart wasn’t engaged in.  “No, she was just telling me about her,” Felicity commented as she nodded her head subtly towards Javier and his stunning mistress.<br/>“Selene?” Oliver said before taking a sip of his own drink.<br/>“Javier cares about her?”<br/>Oliver let the question float unanswered on the evening air as he took another sip, before he turned around and looked out the back of the boat at nothing in particular.  “I suppose, as much as anyone could.”<br/>Felicity stayed with her back to the ocean.  “You mean as much as anyone in his position could?”<br/>“I mean exactly what I say,” Oliver retorted as the whiskey warmed his throat.<br/>“Do you?”</p><p>He turned towards her and her eyes were already on his.  But, before he could answer, a stranger approached.  He was of medium height and build and nearer in age to Javier, though his face wore his age far less handsomely.  His cheeks were full and his lips pulled thin with a smug smile.</p><p>His eyes marked Felicity, from her feet to her chest as his tongue slipped out between his lips.  “How much?” he asked in a husky voice that bore the remnants of an Eastern European accent.<br/>Oliver’s chest puffed with air before he blew the same out in an amused laugh.  “Not for sale,” he replied brashly before he slipped his arm around Felicity’s waist.  His fingers curled around her, tight enough to pinch her skin.</p><p>A hand decorated in brass rings and faded tattoos reached out towards Felicity.  “Everything has a price,” the man remarked, a wetness in the way he spoke that made Felicity recoil.<br/>Oliver slapped his hand away before it reached Felicity, and with such force that it sent the man stumbling back a step.  “I said not for sale.”</p><p>The man took the rejection with a furrowed brow and a snarl that had replaced the smile on his thin lips.  “Nicolás might not see it that way,” he grunted under his breath.<br/>“Try to touch her again and you’ll be asking your connections to sew your cock back on, did I make myself clear?” Oliver hissed, using both his size and stature to tower over the slightly smaller man.</p><p>The usurper muttered something in a language Felicity couldn’t decipher before he threw his hands in the air and walked off, clearly agitated.</p><p>“Did you just threaten to castrate him?” Felicity asked as she tapped two fingers against Oliver’s knuckles where he was holding her.  <br/>His grip loosened and he rested his palm on her hip instead.<br/>“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he casually remarked before he finished his drink.  “Are you feeling seasick?” he asked, his expression shifting to one of amusement.<br/>Felicity set her half-finished drink on a nearby bar table.  “Yes.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Honey.</p><p>His nose caught a scent of it as she brushed past him before he closed the VIP cabin door with his foot.</p><p>The room was opulent, tastefully decorated like a feast for the eyes.  But, Oliver only saw her, the strength in her bare shoulders, the nip of her waist, and the way the lights played with the gauzy fabric of her dress that brushed between her legs as she walked.  Faint shreds of translucency mapped out her shapely legs and as she walked, so did he, trailing like a puppy behind her.</p><p>Her nimble fingers found the zip of her dress as her eyes wandered out through the tinted windows.  The world outside the glass was painted in deep hues of blue, lightened only by the airy glow of stars and ambient light from the vessel touched.</p><p>He watched, mesmerized and enchanted, as Felicity let her scarlet dress fall like a haunting puddle around her feet.</p><p>She was naked, apart from the heels, and while he'd already known she wasn’t wearing underwear the moment they’d left the compound, seeing her heavenly figure standing just barely out of reach made his pulse erupt and his cock throb.</p><p>Felicity stole another moment to gaze out to the dark sky and ashen clouds that dappled it.  The moon was thin, waning, and its light was dulled.  In a moment of hesitation she felt a shaky breath tumble from her lips before she turned, slowly on her patent heels.</p><p>The next word he spoke was smoky and whispered, her name... but not the one she wanted to hear.</p><p>“Megan,” he breathed as he reached out for her.  The tips of his fingers grazed her waist as she buckled towards him.</p><p>This was not love, there were no butterflies or harps, no visions of a future together or a life intertwined, and yet her body ached for him and her soul longed to tell him the truth... <em>perhaps he would understand, perhaps he would help.</em></p><p>She felt the tear welling up but she was unable to stop it before it slipped from her eye and trailed down her cheek, giving her away.</p><p>In that moment his smile softened and his brow grew worried as his thumb caught the single tear before it fell off her jaw.<br/>“We don't have to do anything you don't want to do,” he said softly while he kept his eyes tethered to hers.</p><p>She hated him in that moment.</p><p>She hated the kindness in his voice and the careful endearment that grew in his eyes.  It would be better – easier – if he simply threw her onto the bed and fucked her until he found his own satisfaction.</p><p>It would be easier if his demeanour was cool and apathetic; if there was nothing to feel beyond simple, animalistic sexual gratification.</p><p>But, every time his hand had touched her tenderly, every word spoken softly, and every consideration he'd given her, made everything so much harder.</p><p>The lies.<br/>The secrets.<br/>Her name.</p><p>She needed to hate him, or at the very least not care what happened to him; but every glance, every word, every touch, made that so much harder.</p><p>“I want to,” she whispered before she nipped her teeth into the edge of her lip.<br/>“But you're sad,” he started as his hand cupped her face.<br/>“Why are you like this?” Felicity sobbed, the overwhelming feeling making her sway in her shoes.  “Why aren't you like the rest of them? Why do you care if I'm sad?” </p><p>Oliver was taken back by her words, and as she pulled away from him his hand was left floating in the air.<br/>“You'd rather I didn't?” Oliver asked brusquely.<br/>There was a fight going on inside of her, bubbling to the surface.  “It would make more sense if you were more like them.  You <em>are</em> one of them.”<br/>The emphasis on her last words were meant for herself – a reminder that he was no less a demon than the others that walked in and out of that compound.  She’d watched him kill a man and methodically cover his tracks.  She knew what he’d done, and what he’d allowed to happen.  There was no disgust over the <em>idea</em> that girls were bought and sold, stolen and kidnapped, his only issue was that Felicity not be one of them.</p><p>And it wasn’t love or respect that made that decision; it was control.  She belonged to him.  He would never be able to care for her any more than someone might care for a car.</p><p>Her anger grew, welling up inside of her like she needed it to.<br/>She didn’t love this man, and he would never love her.<br/>She needed to remind herself of that, because that was the only way she kept her head where it needed to be; emotionless and focused.</p><p>“You act like you’re not, but you tell me you are, so what is it?” she asked sharply as the emotion dropped from his expression.<br/>“You'd rather I throw you on the bed and fuck you without a word passing between us? Is that what you want? Is that who I am?” he asked tersely.<br/>“It would make more sense,” she shot back.</p><p>He held her at the waist firmly before he lifted her and threw her back onto the bed.  His large hands held her alabaster thighs as her legs dangled off the edge of the mattress.</p><p>“Do you need me to love you?” he questioned with a brittle smile and a husk in his tone.<br/>Felicity propped herself onto her elbows and stared down the slope of her naked body before her eyes catapulted to his.  <br/>“Are you even capable of such a thing?” she enquired, her tone was contrite, but not at Oliver, at herself.  His monsters were incapable of loving her, and to believe he would understand her plight was foolish at best, deadly at worst.  She couldn’t trust him, not with her name and not with her mission.  She needed to remember that.</p><p>He pushed her legs open and stood between them.  “No,” he answered honestly.<br/>Felicity sat up, her face in line with Oliver's pelvis as his fisted hands lay at his sides.  Her eyes traversed his statuesque physique until their eyes met, but still neither spoke.  Gazes entangled, Felicity tugged up his shirt and fed her hands under the loose flaps before she grazed her palms over the smooth, defined ridges of his stomach until she reached the tight mounds of his upper chest.</p><p>“I know,” she breathed before she curled her fingers and nicked his skin with her nails.  “I know what you’re capable of,” she added, trailing off into a whisper.<br/>Oliver pressed his hands onto Felicity's hands, gouging her nails brutally into his flesh.<br/>“Do you?” he said with a sharp inhale that sounded like a hiss.</p><p>She knew he must have felt pain, but his eyes never broke from hers.<br/>She made sure to speak in only a whisper.  “What are you afraid of?” <br/>His hands fell away and his eyes looked to the ceiling, but he gave no answer.</p><p>Felicity raked her nails down his ribs and the nipped v of his hips before she unfastened his pants. Grabbing the fabric at his waist, she pulled it down sharply, taking both his pants and underwear to his knees.</p><p>“You,” he sighed with his eyes closed.<br/>Felicity leaned forwarded and pecked a warm, almost innocent kiss to the top of his left thigh while her fingers skimmed up the back of his legs.</p><p>A second kiss put Felicity's lips an inch closer to the base of Oliver's cock as her hands palmed his firm ass.  A third skimmed her nose against his shaft as Oliver groaned salaciously.</p><p>But, before a fourth kiss could brush against his cock, Oliver tore her arms away and pushed her down onto the bed before he hunched over her, pinning both her hands above her head and holding them there easily with one hand, not that she resisted.</p><p>His lips ghosted hers as they both took deep breaths in.<br/>“I'm afraid of you,” he said faintly, barely a whisper, before his lips fell hungrily to her throat.</p><p>He kissed her wantonly, devouring the honey scent she'd tormented him with all night as it pulsed off her damp neck.  With tiny kisses and gentle bites, he moved down towards her toned belly and grazed his lips over her navel.  With every uneven breath she took her tummy rose and fell, quickening when his mouth met with her mound.</p><p>Oliver dropped to his knees and positioned his shoulders under her thighs.  She was open, beautifully exposed to him, and he blew gently on her damp folds just to see her body wriggle.</p><p>He’d had every intention of making her wait, tantalising her body to watch it writhe with anticipation and have her sob out of need, but when he kissed the inside of her right thigh and her aroma spiralled through his senses, he knew he wasn’t able to still himself.</p><p>With two fingers he parted her dewy folds before he tasted her with a long, flat tongue.  Her flavour was so sweet and gratifying that Oliver wrapped his arms around her legs and pulled her closer to his mouth just to bury his face in her delicious sex.  She whimpered as his tongue flicked over her pearl and sliced through her like a warm knife through butter.  Her wetness soaked his lips as her back arched from the bed and his grip on her thighs tightened.</p><p>She could feel him smiling, no doubt relishing the way her body reacted to him, and even the way his muscular arms strangled her thighs had Felicity’s body pining for more.  His excitement grew and his tongue danced around and around like a wicked pattern only he knew.</p><p>Soon, she was following his lead, grinding up against the entirety of his mouth as her body responded to her unconscious desires, feeding and nurturing them with every gasp and moan.  The air was thick and alive with their salacious noises as Oliver inserted two fingers into her sodden centre.  Her moans rose in both temperament and volume as her knuckles turned white in the linen.</p><p>As he pumped his fingers and drove his tongue ritualistically through her folds, he felt her breathing quicken and become ragged while her walls closed tightly around his fingers, until she climaxed with a succulent explosion that left his mouth soaking to his chin.</p><p>Still wet with her spend, Oliver licked his lips as he stood up.  She was sprawled on the bed, her body wet with glistening sweat and her eyes unable to open.  Her breathing was uneven and her nipples a bright rose similar to the blush that spread down between her ivory breasts.</p><p>His cock was already rock hard, but he gave it a few short tugs before he lined his cock up with her entrance.  She moaned as his head rimmed the sensitive edges of her sex and when her eyes fluttered open, he was hovering above her, his eyes set on her and his lips still damp with her elixir.</p><p>When he had her eyes on his, Oliver thrust forward, burrowing his cock deep into her tingling core.  She reacted with a muted gasp as he filled her completely.  He stilled for only a moment to allow her body to stretch around his shaft before he pulled back and thrust just as brutally back down.</p><p>Felicity gasped a second time as her body took every inch of him.  As he thrust a third time the same way, he bent down and kissed her ear lobe, gently sucking it between his teeth.<br/>“Do you need me to love you?” he whispered as he pulled back and thrust deeply a fourth time.<br/>Her moan filled his ear before she nipped his jaw.  “No,” she stammered as a fifth thrust stole her breath.</p><p>With that small word, his pace quickened until his thrusts were uncountable and she couldn’t catch her breath.  The depth was exquisite, touching places that blinded her with pleasure as her body came alive with a million sensations.</p><p>The cords of his thighs tightened and shook as his rucks became wild and uneven, before he reached a hand down between them and rubbed his thumb across her swollen clit.  She reacted with a feverish shriek of pleasure as she crumbled around him in a blanket of silky wetness.</p><p>The warmth of her enveloped his shaft moments before he gave way to his own pleasure, and with sharp and deep bucks, he finished inside of her.</p><p><em>It wasn’t love.</em><br/>Both of them needed to believe that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. || bang</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Rest easy DY knowing you fought for every minute.  Your footprint lives on, indelibly.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>There was very little sound in the room except for the dull, low hum of the air conditioner in the centre of the room.  Their bodies were warm and entangled and every faint breath Felicity took brushed warm air against Oliver’s naked chest.  His eyes were heavy, but he kept them open and his brain alert.  He didn’t imagine a day when that wouldn’t be the case.</p><p>Peaceful sleep evaded him, and his eventual rest would be the kind that no one woke up from.  Still, as he listened to the ambient noise and gazed out into a picturesque night sky, he allowed himself a few moments of belief that perhaps fate might have a different plan for him after all.</p><p>These tricks on his psyche were not advantageous, far from it, but as his fingers drew trickles of abstract lines across Felicity’s bare back, he gave himself over to them all the same.</p><p>He knew the boat had already turned around and that before the dawn they would be back behind the concrete walls and barbed wire – both in reality and in spirit.  No matter how hard he willed it, he couldn’t savour the moment for as long as he wanted to.</p><p>It would always be over too soon.<br/>
It would always feel so incomplete.</p><p>His phone on the bedside table beside him buzzed on the marble top and he glanced over to see the message before he shifted slightly in the bed and, full of regret and turmoil, he slipped out from the skewed covers.</p><p>
  <em>Too soon.</em>
</p><p>Felicity roused with the movement, and her fingers caught his wrist.  Her hair was messy and her eyes were wide before she blinked up at him.  They’d had each other that night, multiple times and in ways that glorified both lust and hedonism.  He could see it in her eyes as much as he knew it in his own.</p><p>In moments, as her nails carved into his chest while she rode his cock above him, he thought he saw anger, perhaps even glimmers of hatred, in her turbulent eyes.  But, he would not question it, nor would he hold it against her; after all he wasn’t a man that you loved.</p><p>Not anymore.</p><p>“You have to go?” she asked faintly, her voice beautifully raspy in a way that brought a smile to Oliver’s sombre face.<br/>
“Just for a few minutes,” he responded softly as he brushed a thumb across her pale knuckles.<br/>
Her fingers fell free of him before she clutched the white sheet to her chest and sat up in the large bed.  It was almost amusing how small she looked in such a vast space, and Oliver might have laughed if it wasn’t for the fact she also looked so utterly, devastatingly attractive.<br/>
“Are we heading back?” she questioned, unaware just how mesmerised Oliver had become with the slope of her naked back as she hunched it ever so slightly when her knees tucked up to her chest.</p><p>He leaned over and kissed near the tip of her spine before he trailed his lips across her back, finishing with a chaste peck at the cusp of her shoulder.  “Soon,” he whispered and his lukewarm breath awoke an eruption of goosebumps down her arm.</p><p>“There's a bathroom with a shower in this room if you wish to freshen up,” he added before lightly grazing his teeth up the slope of her neck.<br/>
In truth, he hoped she didn’t.  He hoped their pleasure dried on her skin for him to discover when they got home, only ever so slightly sticky as the heat of her thighs pressing together while she walked, warming it up.  But, when she winced as her hips moved, he imagined their more vigorous sex might have her craving the soothing warmth of a shower.</p><p>She hummed her approval to the idea as she kept her eyes trained on the peaceful scenery.  When Oliver’s phone buzzed again with the same message, he redressed quickly and headed for the door.</p><p>“I’ll stay in here,” Felicity commented softly from the bed and Oliver smiled appreciatively that he didn’t need to request it of her that time.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Bodies were sprawled across couches and a drone sound of the tempered music still played through the PA system as those on board came down from whatever drug-fuelled high they had spent the night getting to.  Nothing about the sight surprised Oliver, but when a young girl who was passed out in the walkway blocked his path, Oliver stooped down to check on her.  Her blonde hair was from a bottle, but suited her olive complexion.  Her dress was chain store, but attractive, and she looked no older than nineteen.  She was breathing and he saw no signs of vomit on her clothes or distress in her expression.  Her makeup was smeared, and he plucked a cocktail umbrella from her hair before he carefully checked her pulse. </p><p>It was strong and consistent, but she didn’t respond to his touch.  He considered scooping her up and taking her back to the room to stay with Felicity, but the option was taken from him when a distraught redhead in broken heels started calling her name, <em>Giana</em>.</p><p>“Is she with you?” Oliver asked brusquely and the redhead nodded with the glazy eyes of a scared doe.<br/>
Giana groaned as Oliver lifted her from the floor and sat her up on an ottoman pushed against a wall.<br/>
“Drink some water and stay here, the boat will dock soon.”<br/>
The girl nodded as she sat next to her friend.  While her shoes were worse for wear, she – at least – seemed cognisant of her surroundings.  Oliver fished out his wallet and handed the girl enough money for a cab fare and then some.</p><p>“Go home, and whatever you thought you’d find here, you won’t,” he said sternly.<br/>
There wasn’t much else he could do for them in that setting, so he hoped enough money and a strong word would be enough and that he wouldn’t see either of them again.</p><p>The air was crisp, but pleasant, outside where Oliver found Javier smoking a cigar alone in a corner of the boat.  There were only a handful of others mulling around outside, but they were preoccupied on the large padded benches in the centre of the deck, and they paid him no mind as he walked past.</p><p>“You wanted to see me?” Oliver asked as he approached the patriarch.<br/>
Javier nodded lightly before he reached into his jacket pocket and returned with a cigar for Oliver.  It was cut and lit before Oliver could reject the offering, and a coil of fresh smoke floated up into the night as he pressed the top between his lips.</p><p>Javier glanced around and, when he was satisfied that there wasn’t another soul listening to their conversation, he hung the smouldering cigar from his fingers and rested his hand on the railing.</p><p>“Miguel,” he started dryly, “I need you to tell me what he said.”<br/>
Oliver smoked the cigar, blowing the tainted smoke out from his nose as he considered his next words.  He’d already told the Sangre what Miguel had said before Máxi shot him, but he sensed Javier needed to hear the words again, and it was no coincidence that he wanted to hear them alone.   </p><p>“He said that he had trusted us and that we’d turned on him,” Oliver recounted.<br/>
Javier nodded as his exhale of smoke dissipated around his lips.  “Did he say anything else?”<br/>
“He was afraid someone was looking for him, and that we weren’t protecting him.”</p><p>“Do you think it was a rival?” Javier asked, cautiously quiet.<br/>
He’d asked a similar question the same night.  Ángel had responded quickly that it had to have been and that he had heard whispers on the streets of someone turning our people against us.  He’d become enraged at the very idea that anyone would think it anything other than a direct target at the Sangre and their shipments.</p><p>But, alone, in the cool night air with a warmth of the cigar lingering in the back of his throat, Oliver shook his head.  He didn’t.  He never had.<br/>
“I considered that,” Oliver explained further, “but nothing had told me anyone is vying for us, they’d be stupid to.”</p><p>While little operations sprung up consistently and mostly without challenge, someone vying for the type of operation that passed through the docks both in Sinaloa and abroad, would need to have a backing that would have already made waves.</p><p>There were always rumours and whispers of course, but nothing of any substance.</p><p>“Stupidity is much like beauty,” Javier remarked with a smile, “it’s subjective.”<br/>
The two men took long drawls on their cigars before Javier spoke again.  “Máxi shot him?”<br/>
“Yes,” Oliver answered, “once in the chest and once in the neck.”<br/>
Javier shook his head as he sighed, “Messy.”<br/>
It had been.  It was not a kill anyone should be proud of unless the intention had been to make the biggest mess.</p><p>“Was he threatening you?” Javier enquired as he breathed out the bitter-smelling smoke.<br/>
“He had a gun,” Oliver acknowledged before he continued, “but his finger wasn’t near the trigger and when I checked the barrel afterwards, he hadn’t even loaded it.”  He sucked slowly on the tip of his cigar before exhaling three small puffs.  “It felt theatrical.”<br/>
“What man brings a gun without bullets?”<br/>
Oliver sighed.  “A man not prepared to use it.”</p><p>“Still, Máximo shot him?” Javier questioned.<br/>
Oliver heard both guilt and disappointment in Javier’s words.  For all their shortcomings, the kill had not been sanctioned or necessary, but most of all it had not been clean or efficient.<br/>
“He thought he was doing what he should,” Oliver replied before taking a lingered drag of his cigar.<br/>
The stoic father nodded.<br/>
“When we tell it, it will be a clean shot to the head,” he decided as his eyes searched the horizon.</p><p>Reputation was everything and Máxi’s first drop could not be seen as either a mistake or sloppy.  It was not merely the idea that the boy was weak that was the problem, in the world they lived in – people preyed on the weak; they made statements out of the weak.</p><p>“Of course,” Oliver agreed.  No one else would hear the true version of events, another secret to add to the growing pile on Oliver’s shoulders.</p><p>It was a few lingered moments before Javier spoke again.  “And the body?” he asked.  The question might have seemed incomplete, but Oliver knew what question he was asking.<br/>
“I took care of it,” Oliver replied while the two gentlemen shared a knowing nod.<br/>
“Good, you have my thanks,” Javier commented before he threw what was left of his cigar into the ocean.  “There is always one trying to sniff around.”</p><p>His laugh was dry and raspy and it seemed to Oliver that the secrets were starting to take their toll on Javier too.  The Sangre kept many officers on their payroll, but it only took one thirsty uniform trying to cement their name to go sniffing in places they ought not.  It was those sorts of distractions that took unnecessary time and money to <em>resolve</em>.</p><p>They might have been a ‘super power’ in Sinaloa, but even Rome eventually fell because it failed to control its vast empire.</p><p>“Were there any witnesses?” Javier asked, his face stoic and his eyes trained on Oliver.<br/>
“Myself, Megan, and Rosa,” Oliver answered truthfully.<br/>
Javier nodded, satisfied he’d found no deception in Oliver’s response.  “And you speak for Megan?”<br/>
“I do,” Oliver confirmed, “she’ll say what I say.”<br/>
“And Rosa?” Javier sighed, making the lines across his forehead more pronounced.<br/>
“I’m sure Máxi will vouch for her,” Oliver tried to assure him, but they both knew what they knew.  Máxi had made no claim to her, she was not his girlfriend and as such, she was an outsider.  Outsiders were not to be trusted with knowledge the Sangre controlled.</p><p>“She is not his to vouch for,” Javier remarked, a troubled hand grazing through his hair before he let out a frustrated sigh.  “I have people in my ear about it and this will only make it worse.  They say I favour him,” a small laugh left Javier’s lips – both men knew this to be true, but of course, it went unsaid.  “Ah,” he huffed as he waved his hand, “leave it with me, but maybe you could speak with him, tell him she is in or she is <em>out</em>.”<br/>
Oliver nodded, shallow and slight.  He knew what Javier meant when he said <em>out</em>, and it was not a conversation he wished to have with Máxi.</p><p>“He listens to you,” Javier added, bobbing his head.<br/>
Oliver laughed and a spiral of smoke bled out from between his lips.  “I’m not so sure about that.”</p><p>Javier stepped back from the railing with a smile on his face; it had been decided and there would be no more discussion of it.</p><p>“One more thing Oliver, it’s about your girl,” Javier started.<br/>
Oliver’s spine stiffened and his shoulders grew tense.  “What about her?” he asked cautiously.<br/>
“She caught the eye of a few tonight.”<br/>
“I’m honoured,” Oliver replied sardonically.<br/>
“Nicolás asked about her?”<br/>
Oliver tempered the growing anger in the pit of his stomach, channelling it towards the cigar he squeezed between his fingers.  “What for?”<br/>
Javier patted his shoulder.  “Don’t worry, business only,” he assured him, “he thinks having her entertain at an auction might draw a crowd, but he thinks she’s too spirited and that you don’t control her.”<br/>
Oliver smirked thinking of the nail tracks down his chest.  “I enjoy spirited.”<br/>
Javier’s face lit up with his laugh.  “It does make the fucking far more enjoyable.”</p><p>“That aside,” Oliver remarked as he watched cigar ash be carried off with a small breeze.  “Ángel would never allow it, he’s always kept me from those.”<br/>
“How would you American’s say, his boots are too big for his feet?” Javier quipped before his smiled dropped.  “He doesn’t get a say, even if he’s vying for my shoes.”</p><p>Oliver said nothing; Javier’s inference was clear – Ángel wanted Javier’s position, irrespective of age or experience.  But it was never Javier’s intention to give it to him.</p><p>“He’s always wanted what he couldn’t have, even as a child,” Javier reminisced coldly.<br/>
It was no secret that the relationship between Javier and his middle son was strained; Matías he respected, Máxi he loved, and his daughter’s every whim was catered for.  But, Ángel’s place was unbalanced, and Javier’s affection for him, was untested.</p><p>But, before Javier could elaborate he saw Selene in the distance, astutely waiting for him with two drinks in her hands.<br/>
“Speaking of spirited,” the older man smiled.  “They are always the ones we want, but we never truly have.”  He ran a comb of fingers through his hair and a gentle breeze played with it.  “They show us the parts of ourselves we’re afraid of.”<br/>
“And what parts are those?” Oliver enquired.<br/>
“Our humanity,” Javier sighed.  “How much of it we’ve sacrificed and how little we have left.  And yet we love them for it.”  He turned to Oliver and shrugged, “perhaps we are just fools for it.”</p><p><br/>
<strong>//a week later</strong>
</p><p>A few days turned into a week as Felicity tore a frustrated hand through her damp locks.  It had been a little over two weeks since she’d stepped out of the shadows and into this world built on them, but she was no closer to finding Alena.</p><p>Oliver stayed with her infrequently now as her place within the family, and the compound, was cemented.  It was an odd sort of illusion, as a woman, to have the respect of the other men – but only because another man demanded it.  She was not, nor ever would be, respected for who she was, only who she was fucking.  If that were to change, Felicity knew she would be deemed a liability.  The Sangre did not like liabilities, irrespective of who they might have been before.</p><p>While that freedom afforded her a chance to look around, there was still much of the compound “off limits”, including in the main house where her options were Oliver’s room, the pool, the kitchen, and the conservatory.  The cellar, the study, the entire west wing, and the billiard room were all places she couldn’t venture unaccompanied by Oliver.</p><p>The other houses on the compounds were by invitation only and if you walked too far away from the main house, you were turned back by an angry looking bodyguard in camo holding a semi-automatic.</p><p>All she could realistically do was wait; wait for Alena to find the trail she’d left, wait for the whispers she heard around the place to make sense, just wait.</p><p>Only, Felicity hated waiting.</p><p>She pushed off from the desk with a frustrated huff before an unexpected tear sprung from her eye.<br/>
“Where are you Alena?” she whispered as she hung her head.</p><p>In reality, Felicity was scared.  Scared that every moment she spent as <em>Megan</em>, the more lost <em>Felicity</em> got.  Lying to Oliver had seemed so simple at first, she told him what he needed to hear and she became the fantasy he held onto.  But, after the night on the boat something seemed different… something about them both.</p><p>Something Felicity couldn’t explain if she’d tried.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The incessant sound of the pen tapping on the bevelled edge of Luis’ desk would have ordinarily drove Oliver to the brink of madness, but today his mind was so wrapped up in other avenues of thought that he barely noticed the annoyance.  Unsurprisingly, Luis was talking faster than Oliver could keep up, stopping every minute or so to suck in a sharp breath before continuing.</p><p>The long and short of it was Luis had found what Oliver had asked him to look for; as for the how, Oliver was uninterested, but he allowed the young hacker to regale him with it regardless.</p><p>“It was almost too easy,” Luis chatted excitedly as he rocked his chair in time with the <em>tap, tap, tap</em> of his pen.<br/>
It was only then that Oliver drew back his wandering attention.  “What you do mean too easy?” he cautiously asked.  In his line of work, both in the past and in the present, when something was <em>too</em> easy, there was usually a reason for it – and it was rarely an advantageous reason.</p><p>The tapping stopped and Luis sat up with a mischievous glint in his eyes.<br/>
“Most people have a path in their life, they were born, they went to school, got a job, died.  But that one path has all these other paths that come off it, you know?” he explained with animated gestures.  “Some of those are dead ends, the wrong people, or just fuck ups, you know?”<br/>
Oliver nodded, he understood the basics; the life of a person was never just one straight path, the longer you lived the more trails you made, that was just inevitable.</p><p>“Everything I needed on your girl, I found,” Luis exclaimed like a kid in a candy store.<br/>
But, Oliver wasn’t quite sure he followed.  “What are you trying to say?” <br/>
Luis began rocking slowly in his chair before he shrugged lightly.  “Nothing really I suppose,” he answered, “it’s all legit, but it was all just <em>there</em>, I barely had to try to find it.”<br/>
“You found Cooper?”<br/>
Luis sighed, and Oliver got the impression he’d been disappointed at how easy the task had been for him; the kid liked a challenge.</p><p>“Birthdate, social, last known address,” the younger man rattled off while Oliver listened.<br/>
“Phone number?” <br/>
Luis nodded as Oliver plucked the pen from his hand and prepared to write it down.  “But,” Luis started, “it won’t do you any good, he’s a ghost?”<br/>
“He went off the grid?”<br/>
“No, an actual ghost,” Luis grinned before he made a ghoulish sound.  “He died in a car accident about four years ago.”</p><p>Oliver was surprised.  While Megan had been guarded about her ex-boyfriend, she hadn’t seemed upset and she certainly hadn’t mentioned he was dead.  Still, that could have explained why she resisted talking about him when Oliver pressed her with a series of uncomfortable questions.</p><p>“Is there a Police report?”<br/>
Luis shook his head.<br/>
“An obituary?”<br/>
Another shake.  “Just a death certificate.”</p><p>Oliver’s brow furrowed as he considered what he knew; any vehicular accident that resulted in death had a report done.  It was often short and half-assed, but there was always <em>something.</em></p><p>“You want me to look into this guy?” Luis asked after a measure of silence.<br/>
Oliver shook his head.  “No, I’ll take care of this.”<br/>
He took an envelope of cash from the inside of his leather jacket and handed the wad to Luis.  “This information stays between us.”<br/>
Luis nodded as he took the envelope.  “It always does.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Oliver shrugged off his jacket in the late-morning heat and threw it into the passenger seat of his car before he took a few moments to roll up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt.  He had more errands to run that day, but there was a part of him that was considering doing them tomorrow for a chance to drive home and spend some time with Megan.</p><p><em>Megan.</em><br/>
Even thinking her name caused him to sigh mournfully.  He’d found himself pulling back from her since Javier’s party for reasons he wasn’t so sure he could easily explain.  But, when she had asked him why it was that he cared what she thought or how she felt, he knew he’d begun to give too much of himself away.</p><p>He hadn’t taken her as a girlfriend to satisfy his own hedonism or to fill a gaping hole that he knew grew with every passing day; he’d done it because there had been no other choice.</p><p>But, she soon became a crutch, a vice that he didn’t want to relinquish.</p><p>She started to become a reason.</p><p>He didn’t need a reason.</p><p>Frustrated, Oliver glanced up before sliding into his car and he caught sight of a familiar car in the distance.  He closed his door and jogged up the sidewalk to where the red Maserati was parked.  Around the driver’s side, Oliver tapped on the window and it opened.</p><p>“You stand out like a sore thumb,” Oliver jested as he crossed his arms over his chest.<br/>
Máxi half-smiled, but there was sadness in it.<br/>
“What are you doing in this neighbourhood?” Oliver asked, watching as his young friend wrung his hands around the leather steering wheel.<br/>
“I tried to find them, but I only got this far,” Máxi replied quietly.  There was no animation in his voice and no lightness in his expression.  It was not the same Máxi that Oliver usually encountered, something had changed.</p><p>Astutely, Oliver knew the “<em>them</em>” Máxi was talking about without him needing to explain – Máxi had come looking for Miguel’s family.  The family of the man who he’d shot.</p><p>Oliver opened the door.  “Get out, I’m driving,” he said with a half-cocked smile.<br/>
Máxi didn’t offer any argument and the two were soon pulling away from the kerb with Oliver driving.</p><p>They drove in silence through side streets and rundown neighbourhoods until Oliver pulled up outside a small white house with a rusty iron fence and a large tree that shaded an empty porch.  The shutters were closed, but the few scattered toys in the yard said the home wasn’t empty.</p><p>“Is this it?” Máxi asked, his voice shaky as he stared through the window at the gate which lay off its hinges.<br/>
“This is it,” Oliver replied.  He paused to wait for Máxi’s acknowledgment which came in the form of a very faint nod.<br/>
“So now what?” Oliver quizzed, his voice a little sharper than it had been.<br/>
Máxi said nothing but he looked over his shoulder at a green duffle bag lying on the backseat before he looked back out the window.  “He had kids?” he asked softly, and his voice was thin and brittle as though it could break any minute.<br/>
“Three.”<br/>
Máxi hung his head and knotted a hand into his moppy hair.</p><p>“You took their father,” Oliver said coldly, watching as Máxi grimaced with the truth.  “You shot him, so now what Máxi?”<br/>
“I don’t know?” Máxi whispered.<br/>
Oliver reached between the seats and grabbed the duffle bag before he threw it onto Máxi’s lap.  “A bag full of money? You think that’s what you need to do to make it all better?”<br/>
Máxi stared down at the bag before he sobbed out a breath.  “I don’t know,” he said a second time, more shaky than the last.</p><p>“You better fucking know, you shot him Máxi and that’s on you, so tell me, what are you going to do about it?”<br/>
Máxi shifted, uncomfortably, in the tan seat.  He couldn’t bring himself to look out the window anymore.  “Why are you telling me this?” he breathed, the shudder in his voice giving way to tears.<br/>
“Because,” Oliver said stoically, “when you point a gun, you’re pointing it at a person so you better know what you’re shooting for.”</p><p>“How do I fix this?” the younger man asked and when he looked up, Oliver saw the deep regret sunken into his cobalt eyes.<br/>
He wasn’t built for this world; and it hadn’t taken him completely. <br/>
“You can’t,” Oliver sighed.  “None of us can.”<br/>
“So now what? What do I do? I can’t do this,” Máxi cried as he forced his eyes up; forced himself to look at the small trike in the yard.  “I can’t be this person. I can’t be you or my father.”<br/>
“Then don’t be,” Oliver replied.  </p><p>The car fell silent for a few moments before Oliver spoke again, “I’ll see his wife gets the money.”<br/>
Máxi nodded faintly before he brushed the tears back from his cheeks.</p><p>He wasn’t made for this world.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Oliver drove Máxi’s car, turning it onto an arterial road that was busy with midday traffic, after making the decision that he’d return for his own car later.</p><p>It was a brighter part of the city, bustling with lunch traffic and the smooth sounds of buskers taking the opportunity to earn a little extra money with the crowds.  A gaggle of attractive girls walking together along the wide sidewalk glanced their way and smiled coquettishly with a small wave and a flick of their luscious dark locks for good measure.  </p><p>A bike messenger squeezed past them on one side as the traffic ahead rolled to a stop at a red light.  Three cars ahead of him and two slowing in the lane alongside.</p><p>The sky was clear and the day itself was thoroughly unremarkable at a glance.</p><p>Up until the first bullet shattered the passenger's side window, sending a spray of glass across Máxi’s face while the brutal eruption caused a ringing in his ears which left him disorientated.</p><p>It seemed only by a miracle that the high-powered bullet missed its intended target and exploded through the headrest before smashing through the window behind Oliver in under a second.</p><p>The second bullet was expected and Oliver acted instinctively to press Máxi’s head down.</p><p>It was broad daylight in the middle of an intersection and their car was caged it.</p><p>Oliver threw the Maserati into reverse and slammed into the car behind them with such force that it spun the light van up onto the sidewalk.</p><p>A halo of bullets rained down from the Dodge in front of them as three masked men in black clothing emerged in military fashion from the back doors.</p><p>Máxi was bleeding and the cracks of bullets smacking into metal threw the street into chaos as bystanders dove for cover behind toppled cafe tables.  </p><p>The car was still hedged in as a black van pulled up alongside.  But, before the van could open fire, Oliver mounted the sidewalk which undoubtedly gouged deep crevices into the once immaculate red paintwork of Máxi’s pride and joy.</p><p>Shifting gears, the car swerved into the intersection and through the other side as the shooters scrambled back into their cars.</p><p>Oliver weaved through traffic at high speed as Máxi lifted his dazed and bleeding head.<br/>
“Who the fuck was that?” Máxi groaned as he touched his fingers to the superficial injuries.<br/>
Oliver scoured the rear view mirror but it didn't appear they were being followed.  Whoever it was, they had lost the element of surprise and they didn't appear to have a Plan B.</p><p>“Shit, Oliver,” Máxi whimpered.<br/>
Oliver glanced across at him with a small scoff.  “It's just a graze Máxi, you'll be fine,” he remarked nodding to the blood on Máxi’s fingertips.<br/>
“Not me,” Máxi remarked as he pointed at Oliver's arm.</p><p>His white shirt sleeve was stained red; dark and crimson, bleeding like a haunting painting.</p><p>“You got shot.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. || cold-blooded</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Black Lives Still Matter.<br/>This isn't a trend.  Find a way to make a difference today; call out a racist relative, donate, sign, look at your own structures and beliefs and be honest xo</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <strong>The Line Soundtrack | <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4wen5CEHe8Yxil8nqFyfq7?si=QeFqa-BKTzir98LSvKhgFw">listen on Spotify here</a></strong>
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  <strong>[Title Song / Cold-Blooded / Zayde Wolf </strong>
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<p>“Megan!” Rosa shouted her name loud enough that it startled the toy spaniel in Gabriella’s lap as her, Felicity, and Carmen lay on loungers by the pool.<br/>Felicity looked over the edge of the book she was reading as Rosa raced towards them, losing one of her sandals along the way.</p>
<p>“Oliver’s been shot!” she sobbed, near-hysterical, before she reached them.<br/>Felicity dropped the book as she stood up sharply.<br/>“What?” Carmen demanded while she set her cocktail aside and pulled down the large sunglasses that covered her eyes.<br/>“He’s inside, there is so much blood.”<br/>Rosa’s panicked words were the last thing Felicity heard as her bare feet carried her swiftly into the house, where the commotion of voices told her the way.</p>
<p>Ignoring the protocol that women weren’t to enter the billiard room without express permission, Felicity threw the double doors open and ran inside.  Oliver was standing upright and shirtless, leaning against the billiard table with an open bottle of bourbon in his hand.  A white shirt stained red lay crumpled and torn on the felt top.<br/> <br/>As Felicity headed towards him, Oliver took a swig of the alcohol before he doused his wounded arm with the same.  She watched his face twist and a demonic groan echo from behind his clenched teeth as the pain resonated violently down his arm.</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” he grimaced when Felicity stopped wide-eyed in front of him.<br/>“You don't look fine,” she replied sardonically.<br/>“This old thing?” he said with a brittle laugh as he nodded down to his arm.<br/>“Old war wound?”<br/>Oliver smiled as he set the liquor down and instead reached for a blade that sat on the billiard table beside him.<br/>“Nothing to worry about,” he assured her.<br/>“Son of a bitch drove all the way back here like that,” Máxi remarked as he tendered to his own superficial wounds in the mirror.</p>
<p>It was only then that Felicity realised that all the other men were in the room too; the room she wasn’t supposed to be in.</p>
<p>“Go back to the pool,” Oliver remarked as he nodded down at Felicity’s swimsuit.  “I’ll come join you soon,” he added with a wink.<br/>But, behind the bravado she could see his expression flinch with every small movement he made.<br/>“You should be at a hospital,” she said brusquely.<br/>“Hospitals ask a lot of questions,” Javier commented as he moved towards them.  He picked up the alcohol Oliver had set aside and poured a splash onto the blade in Oliver’s hand.</p>
<p>Using his less dexterous left hand, Oliver clutched the knife and headed to the fleshy part of his shoulder where the wound was.</p>
<p>“You’re going to take that out yourself?” Felicity gaped.<br/>“I offered, but he turned me down,” Adrian joked as he walked towards Felicity.<br/>“You got a little something on your nose,” Oliver huffed and Adrian wiped the powdery white substance away with a boisterous laugh.</p>
<p>“It’s your dominant arm,” Felicity remarked, ignoring the banter between the rest of the room.<br/>Oliver and Adrian shared a look before Adrian reached for Felicity’s arm, “Come on Megan, I’ll walk you back to the pool, Oliver doesn’t want you to see him crying like a baby,” Adrian jested much to Oliver’s grunted dismay.</p>
<p>But, defiantly, Felicity tore her hand away and stared up at Oliver.  “No hospital?”<br/>“No hospital,” Oliver replied.<br/>“No Cártel doctor that comes around and keeps secrets?”<br/>Oliver smiled.  “Only for the big, real messy ones.” </p>
<p>Felicity plucked the knife from Oliver’s hand.  “I guess I’ll be doing it then.”<br/>She cocked an eyebrow at Oliver who simply smiled.  “You sure?”<br/>“No, but it seems a better option than you bumbling it.”</p>
<p>If it wasn’t for the sudden burst of pain down his arm, Oliver probably would have kissed her, not caring who saw.</p>
<p>Máxi set down a first aid kit beside Felicity’s hand and she looked at it intently; it was hardly medical-grade – a few plasters, a sling, a tube of saline, a dozen safety pins, and a few other things – but, it would have to do.</p>
<p>She used the saline first to clean the wound as carefully as she could.<br/>“I already did that, with this,” Oliver remarked as he gently shook the bottle of bourbon.<br/>Felicity looked up from her task over the slope of his shoulder and raised one eyebrow.  “That hardly counts,” she commented to Oliver’s amusement.</p>
<p>Felicity, expecting to see a gaping hole once much of the blood was cleaned away, was surprised to instead see an embedded shard of glass and a wound that, while deep, was not gaping.<br/>“I expected a bullet,” Felicity said before she reached for the snub-nose tweezers.<br/>“Máxi might have oversold it,” Oliver grimaced as Felicity gripped the edges of the broken glass.</p>
<p>It was thick, nearly 5 millimetres, and she imagined it was stuck quite deep given the size of the exposed edge, nearly an inch and a half long.</p>
<p>Oliver took another drink as Felicity gripped the tweezers tightly at the edge of the glass.  He winced and a raspy and muffled groan left his closed lips.</p>
<p>“Did that hurt?” Felicity asked sardonically.<br/>He smirked down at her with the bourbon sitting just below his chin.  “Just a little,” he remarked sarcastically. <br/>With their eyes locked, Felicity moved the tweezers and the shard of glass a little to the left and Oliver let out another stifled groan.<br/>“Imagine how much worse it would feel if you went digging around yourself with a knife,” she quipped before she edged the glass from the wound and dropped in onto his bloodied shirt.<br/>It bled a little and as Felicity pressed a fibreless-cotton rag to it, Oliver tipped a little and kissed her damp forehead.</p>
<p>“You should do this for a living,” he remarked before he took another drink.<br/>“You should stop getting shot at,” she argued coquettishly.<br/>The few in the room that heard laughed before Adrian raised his glass.  “Fucking amen to that,” he announced.</p>
<p>But the joviality was only momentary as Javier walked over to Oliver and stood ahead of him, a face like thunder.  Felicity hadn’t seen the infamous anger from the man she had only known to be charming and somewhat debonair, but there was no mistaking his expression for anything other than blind rage.</p>
<p>“Did you see who did this?” he asked Oliver, and each word he spoke carried its own menacing undertone.<br/>“No, they were masked,” Oliver replied.<br/>Javier clenched his fists at his sides as he looked over to Máxi.  “Did you see anything?”<br/>Máxi shook his head, the fear transparent in his eyes.</p>
<p>Javier turned back to Oliver.  “You were driving Máxi’s car?”<br/>“Yes, incidentally.  I left mine elsewhere,” Oliver explained.<br/>“I see,” Javier breathed as his head nodded slowly, the cogs clearly ticking over in his mind.</p>
<p>It was simply a happenstance that Oliver was driving Máxi’s car.  The inference being that Máxi should have been driving it.</p>
<p>Javier turned to Jáco with an icy stare.  “I want to know who did this,” he said loud enough so that everyone in the room heard.  “I want names, and then I want bodies.”<br/>“Yes Javier,” Jáco replied, but the room echoed the same sentiment with their decisive nods.</p>
<p>All except one.</p>
<p>One only Felicity noticed.<br/>Ángel sipped his drink and kept his head very still.</p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p><br/>The hot water rose up the sides of the porcelain bathtub as Oliver shifted languidly.  His eyes were heavy and his brow was weary, while troubled thoughts rolled over in his head; <em>the first shot missed</em>.  Whoever took that shot sat at a higher vantage point but the trajectory was skewed.  They hadn’t accounted for something.  <em>But what?</em></p>
<p>They had shot at the passenger side first, a seemingly illogical choice.</p>
<p>A troubled sigh misted the foggy air.<br/>It was a distraction; another distraction he couldn’t afford.</p>
<p>A sponge of soapy bathwater cascaded down his back as Felicity squeezed it against his slick neck.  A pleasant sigh stole his thoughts as he felt her lips at the base of his neck.</p>
<p>“Was it meant for you?” Felicity asked, her voice faint as her lips brushed against his ear.<br/>“No,” he conceded.  “I don’t think so.”  </p>
<p>“Do you know who it was?” she whispered and her breath carpeted his arm.<br/>“If I did, they would be dead,” he answered irefully as he stared at the wall ahead of him.  Everything about his demeanour was closed off to even her, and Felicity could see the demons were taunting his thoughts.</p>
<p>She kissed his silken skin a second time, dragging her lips up towards the cusp of his shoulder, deliberate and slow, pulling short, faint breaths from his pensive lips.</p>
<p>As her last intimate kiss bruised the edge of Oliver’s shoulder, he reached around and pulled her onto his lap, spilling a wave of water over the brim and onto the slate tiles.  He kissed her mouth, fiercely wanton, almost demanding, and she opened up to his possessive tongue.  The kiss was incredibly deep, hungry and open-mouthed, until he severed it just as brutally as he had started it.</p>
<p>His eyes challenged hers, questions sitting at the tip of his tongue; <em>Who was she? What did she want?</em>  But, she possessed too much of him, he needed her; even with the secrets he knew she kept.</p>
<p>After all, he kept his own too.</p>
<p>She shifted enough to seat her body on his pelvis with her legs tucked either side of his hips.  Her body rose from the water, dripping wet with puddles of velvety, white bubbles sliding teasingly down the smooth slopes of her breasts.  Her warm hands cupped his neck before she leaned down and kissed the flinching corners of his brooding lips.  The intricate, delicate touch of her lips absorbed him as she sunk his cock into her tight entrance.</p>
<p>A growl bled from his lips as his eyes drooped closed.  The feeling of her crushing warmth enveloped his shaft and he lost his thoughts over to it.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to move, and when Felicity began to rock her body above him, he still her by holding her hips.</p>
<p>“Stay,” he breathed, with his eyes closed and his head tipped back, resting on the ledge.</p>
<p>His face looked content, almost peaceful.  And, for perhaps a moment, he was.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Ángel pressed the cigarette between his lips, letting it sit there for a moment before he drew in a breath and filled his lungs.  His brow was pensive as he studied the gold face of his Rolex.  The room was warm, even with the patio windows open and a gentle breeze danced with the gauzy nets.  He plucked the cigarette from his lips and blew out a swirl of smoke that lingered around his nose.</p>
<p>“What were you thinking?” a voice said in a flat whisper behind him.<br/>“What you told me,” Ángel responded without turning.  He knew the voice, and it was no surprise when the tap of her designer heels carried his mother around to the front of him.<br/>He brought the cigarette up to his lips a second time, but before he could smoke it, Gloria tugged it from his mouth and pressed it into an empty ashtray on the oak bar near where Ángel stood, fixated on the view out his patio doors.</p>
<p>“I didn’t tell you to be an idiot about it,” Gloria hissed as she dug her scarlet nails into the polished wood.<br/>Ángel took another cigarette from the packet in his pocket and lit it with his platinum lighter.  “Oliver wasn’t supposed to be there,” he said grittily between clenched teeth.<br/>“But he was,” Gloria scathed.  “And your guys fucked up.”<br/>Ángel shrugged but on the inside he was fuming.<br/>“Next time,” he growled as he pushed off from the edge of the bar and walked towards the room’s carved archway.<br/>Gloria followed, not content to leave matters.  “There won’t be a next time if Javier finds out you tried to kill Máxi,” she fumed, the brittle and heated words spilling like venom from her mouth.</p>
<p>Ángel opened his mouth to reply when a soft creaking sound made him press his finger to his lips instead.  With a few light steps he walked to the edge of the room and listened, a second noise – much like the first, echoed in the still air. </p>
<p>He flew out of the room abruptly and with his gun already drawn, to find Carmen standing on the stairs, her mouth open and her eyes wide.</p>
<p>“Hey baby,” Ángel cooed, an unmistakable cold-bloodied tone woven through his voice.</p>
<p>//</p>
<p>The air was frigid, but his palms were wet with sweat.</p>
<p>The room was dark and his fingers mapped the edges of it to paint a picture in his head.  But, the walls were wet, dropping with a fluid that was sticky and thick.  He gasped and brittle, poisonous air filled his lungs.</p>
<p>The floor shifted, sending him to his knees.</p>
<p>A scream pierced through the silence, distant and echoing.</p>
<p>His breath was laboured as he fought his way to his feet again.  But, as his knees straightened, the floor moved again, opening up deep crevices that filled the room with haunting cries.</p>
<p>A light moved in the distance as the walls fell away and he ran towards it as the world crumbled around him.</p>
<p>Breathless,  he reached the light but it vanished into his fingers, sparking walls to spire from the ground in sudden, destructive bursts.  The walls were mirrors and he cowered at the reflection they showed him; not his own, but faces he tried to forget.</p>
<p>“Oliver.”<br/>His name trickled like a breeze against his ears, taunting him, tearing his mind in different directions.  He moved left, but he was met with a wall and a reflection of himself.  His eyes were gone and his lips sewn shut, but his chest moved, up and down with slow, considered breaths.</p>
<p>“Oliver.”<br/>He heard it again, spinning his feet in circles as he searched for it.</p>
<p>Searched for her.</p>
<p>He ran, in a direction away from himself until his shoes filled with water as it filled up the black floor.  He looked down, staring as the waters of red rose up towards his ankles.</p>
<p>“Oliver.”<br/>She screamed.  Her voice more panicked than he’d ever heard it.  But, he couldn’t move.  He couldn’t find her in the darkness.</p>
<p>“Oliver.”<br/>She grew faint, as if begging with her last breaths.</p>
<p>“Amanda,” he called out into the shapeless dark.</p>
<p><em>He’d promised.</em><br/>He shifted his feet, tearing at his legs to try and move them until finally he broke free from the blood-stained hands that held him.</p>
<p>He sprinted into the unknown, consumed by her voice.</p>
<p>He’d promised.<br/>“Amanda,” he yelled.<br/>But no reply came, only silence and the haunting echo of his own hurried footsteps.</p>
<p>He stopped, out of breath and out of time, crippling over as the shadows engulfed him like black flames.</p>
<p>He looked up, restless.</p>
<p>She stood in front of him, her pale face devoid of colour beneath her complexion.  Her green eyes were ghoulishly sallow.  Her dark hair was knotted around her limp shoulders.</p>
<p>She looked at him, sad and lost.</p>
<p>“You promised,” she whispered.</p>
<p>“Oliver,” another voice called to him from the gloom as the girl began to fade away.<br/>“Amanda, I’m sorry,” he pleaded.<br/>He reached for her but his hand fell short.</p>
<p>“Oliver, wake up.”  Soft and faintly sad.</p>
<p>A sharp breath woke him and he sat up in the bed, his eyes darting around the room.  His room.  A hand rested on his wrist and his body trembled at its warmth.</p>
<p>“Oliver,” Felicity whispered, watching as the sweat bled down Oliver’s back.  His thrashing and cries had woken her before she had tried to settle him.</p>
<p>Confused and barely awake, Oliver fell into Felicity’s arms, pressing his head to her chest as scolding tears branded his cheeks.</p>
<p>He had promised.</p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>It was no surprise when it came, at least not to Oliver.  But, if anyone else around the table was surprised by Máxi’s decision to leave the compound, and by extension the Sangre, they masked it well.</p>
<p>When he announced his decision at breakfast, the noisy chatter immediately ceased and an eerily stillness fell over the ground of men.</p>
<p>You didn’t simply <em>leave</em> the Cártel.<br/>It was not a Country Club where you could decide not to renew your membership and be on your way.  People lived the Sangre, and people died for the same.</p>
<p>The morning was unremarkable, breakfast started a little later than normal, but Javier was seated in his spot at the head of the table before 9:30 rolled around.</p>
<p>Oliver had risen early and left his room before 6am to clear his head with a fast run around the compound.  He’d returned to the bedroom near 7am to find Megan awake and dressed.  They barely spoke, and that was on him, as he avoided the questions he knew she must have had about Amanda.</p>
<p>He showered and dressed, and after telling her he would be gone most of the day on errands, he left before the sun even had time to properly rise.  He’d spent the next three hours in pursuit of an answer and avoiding the shadow at his back.</p>
<p>He hadn’t seen Máxi that morning before breakfast, but when the youngest of them all sat down beside Oliver for breakfast, he knew there was something weighing heavy on his shoulders.</p>
<p>It wasn’t long before Oliver understood why; <em>Máxi was leaving.  He wanted out.</em></p>
<p>“You can’t just leave.” Matías’ words finally broke the silence.  They were not sharp nor bitter, but the weight they carried with them was absolute.  You didn’t just <em>leave.</em><br/>But, Máxi was resolute if not obstinate when his mind was made up.  “I don’t want this, not anymore,” he announced, all the usual candour and immaturity in his words had vanished, replaced instead by a bullish determination.<br/>“You should have thought about that <em>before</em> you took what you wanted.  You don’t get the lifestyle without the <em>life,”</em> Ángel sneered across the table.  It wasn’t anger Oliver heard in his tone either, but it was something far more sinister than Matías’.</p>
<p>None of the others spoke up, knowing it wasn’t their place, although Nicolás wore his disdain unveiled.  He had put up with Javier’s youngest son and his flippant nature because he was Javier’s son – it was as simple as that.  He didn’t care either way if the boy stayed or left, but ultimately the decision could fracture the Sangre, and it was that which Nicolás would need to plan for.</p>
<p>“Fuck you,” Máxi spat. <br/>Ángel laughed, menacing and deliberate.  “You found yourself a pretty little cunt and you think that you can just walk out?”<br/>“Don’t you fucking talk about Rosa,” Máxi roared as he pushed his chair angrily back from the table.<br/>Ángel was to his feet barely a second later.  “She’s just a little slut like the rest of th-.”</p>
<p>Máxi flew across the table before Ángel had a chance to finish his sentence and in a breath both men were wrestling on the floor as chairs and people scattered.</p>
<p>“You’re a piece of shit, you think anyone here gives a shit about you?” Máxi hissed as his first punch connected with Ángel’s face.</p>
<p>But, Ángel was larger and undeniably stronger, so his first retaliatory blow knocked Máxi onto his back and gave Ángel the chance to get to his feet.  Ángel brushed a trickle of blood from the corner of his lip with the back of his hand and stood ominously over Máxi, who was reeling from the blow.</p>
<p>“Enough!” Javier roared.<br/>The room fell silent as the patriarch walked over to the scene.<br/>“Enough,” he echoed his command a second time while his brow twisted with anguish.</p>
<p>His eyes first honed in on Ángel before he picked up a cloth napkin and handed it towards his middle son.  But, the moment Ángel took the white cloth from his father’s hands, Javier turned to Máxi and extended his hand.</p>
<p>Máxi took it, and got to his feet with Oliver beside him.  Javier’s hand stayed locked to his youngest son’s hand and for a moment, no one spoke.<br/>“You are my son,” Javier said, shaky and brittle, as he placed his free hand to Máxi’s cheek. <br/>“Papá, I’m sorry,” Máxi said faintly, tears welling up in his vivid eyes.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be who you expected me to.”<br/>“No,” Javier whispered, squeezing his son’s hand.  “You are who I know you to be, just like your mother.”</p>
<p>Seconds passed like hours in silence before Javier clutched Máxi to his chest and made his decree.  “You go with my blessing.”</p>
<p>At those words, Ángel threw down the napkin and left the room amidst a litany of curse words, but it would make no difference – Javier had spoken.  </p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>Oliver walked Máxi to the front door where his bag already lay packed and waiting.</p>
<p>“Rosa is waiting for me somewhere else,” Máxi spoke quietly and Oliver nodded.  It was sensible she wasn't there; irrespective of how much Javier cared for Máxi, there was no surety of what his response would have been.</p>
<p>Oliver would have done the same thing.</p>
<p>“Where will you go?” Oliver asked as he lifted Máxi's bag and handed it to him.<br/>“I think we need to get out of Sinaloa for a little while.  Once Rosa has her passport I'll take her home.”</p>
<p><em>Home,</em> Italy.<br/>Máxi opened the door and stood in the doorway to take a deep breath.<br/>“You take care of yourself Máxi.  Get away from here and don't look back,” Oliver implored.<br/>Máxi nodded, even though the secret nuance in Oliver's warning was likely lost on him.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Máxi breathed as he took the first step out the door.<br/>Oliver smiled.  “For what?”<br/>“Believing I could be more.”  Máxi walked down the stairs and Oliver followed.  “You could walk away too,” Máxi said before he opened the door of a black town car.  “Walk away with Megan.”</p>
<p>Oliver raked his nails over his scalp and offered Máxi a faint smile and a lie.  “Maybe one day.”</p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p><br/>Felicity never heard the commotion downstairs as her entire body fixated on the screen in front of her.  She took an unsteady breath, but it didn’t dislodge the lump in her throat.</p>
<p>Her eyes were arid, but stung as she blinked; foolishly hoping the screen would go blank, and the image would disappear forcing her to decide it was simply a figment of her imagination.</p>
<p>It didn’t.</p>
<p>The grainy image remained, screaming silently in dim colour.</p>
<p>Alena.</p>
<p>She was looking at a photograph of Alena hidden away in the recesses of Oliver's computer, accessed by using his own telling nightmare; Amanda Payne’s case number.</p>
<p>Other information lay embedded in different encryptions, but Felicity's hands were shaking too uncontrollably to begin to unravel them.</p>
<p>All she saw was Alena.<br/>A photo she'd never seen before, but she was wearing a forest green sweatshirt that she had <em>borrowed</em> from Felicity.  A sweatshirt Felicity never found in their apartment.</p>
<p>Her eyes, surrounded by large wire-framed glasses, looked sallow and drawn, and threaded with regret, fear, confusion? Felicity struggled to tell.</p>
<p>Another breath – sharp and sudden.</p>
<p>Oliver had taken her.</p>
<p>The reality slapped the air from her lungs like a gasp.</p>
<p>She didn’t hear anything else but the questions swarming in her head as she robotically opened the desk drawer and curled her fingers around the metal barrel.</p>
<p>Oliver had her.</p>
<p>A single tear slid from her eye.</p>
<p>“Megan?” Oliver said from the open door.<br/>She stood up slowly, clutching her secret to her trembling chest.</p>
<p>He closed the door before his eyes moved to the image on the screen.  “What are you doing?”<br/>After steeling herself with an unsteady breath, Felicity turned around and pointed the loaded gun at Oliver.</p>
<p>He didn’t seem surprised, but rather in his eyes Felicity saw a reflection of expectant sadness.<br/>“Where is she?” Felicity pressed.  Her voice may have trembled as she spoke but both her eyes and her stance stayed anchored.  <br/>Oliver stepped forward as his eyes stayed locked to Felicity, unflinching.<br/>“Where is Alena?”  Her brittle voice fractured around the edges as her breath stuttered.</p>
<p>This had not been the plan, far from it.  But, when Felicity started down the path to find Alena she knew there would be lines she would have to cross and decisions she would have to make in the moment.  The reality of that sunk into her chest making it hard to breathe, but she kept the gun raised and her eyes fixated on the man who had her answers.</p>
<p>Oliver stepped closer still, until the butt of the gun pressed into his chest.<br/>“Do it,” he whispered, his voice achingly cold.<br/>Her breathing laboured and her eyes wet at the corners, Felicity stilled herself as best she could as her finger lay decisively on the trigger.  “Where is she?”</p>
<p>In his eyes she saw regret, sorrow, and pain, and he let her.  He let her delve into his soul, to see the darkness and see the battle scars.  </p>
<p>His hand coiled around the barrel of the gun and using the strength he knew he had to overpower her; he did.</p>
<p>He emptied the bullets onto the floor and in seconds, the dismantled gun lay at his feet and then his arm was around her waist, her back pressed into his chest, and his other hand clamped tightly over her mouth.</p>
<p>Reactively she screamed, but only a muffled sob leaked from between his thick fingers.  She struggled, kicking against him and fighting with every ounce of strength that she had as Oliver dragged her into the bathroom.  Her nails caught his face and her feet caught his shins, but he kept moving deeper into the small room.</p>
<p>Anger and hate consumed her, finally free of the walls she had built around herself to play the part of Megan.  She bit down on his fingers causing Oliver to stumble and his grip to falter.</p>
<p>There was no sense in her trying to flee, but reason had left the moment she had pointed a gun at a man twice her size who was trained to kill far more aptly than she ever was.  She reached the door of the bathroom, but her palm, wet with sweat, slipped around the knob and the seconds cost her the escape. </p>
<p>He grabbed her a second time and his strong arm pushed the wind from her lungs as she thrashed out.  They wrestled for what seemed like hours strung together, but which in reality only amounted to mere seconds, before the room flooded with the sound of pelting water, and Felicity realised he’d turned on the shower.</p>
<p>As the air started to mist up, Oliver pushed her into the heavy cascade of tepid water.  Reactively she shivered as the water drenched her to the bone.  Fully clothed and with his hand still covering her mouth, Oliver followed in behind her.</p>
<p>Her cheek met with the cool wall as his body caged her in.  His mouth was near her ear and she could hear his slow, ragged breath.  She closed her eyes, imagining this was it and knowing how easily he could kill her while her body would simply vanish.</p>
<p>She knew what he was capable of.<br/>She knew his demons.</p>
<p>The water poured down Oliver’s back and drew rivers down the curves of his face, dropping off from his parted lips as he pressed his body against hers.  She was shaking and he could feel her hot breath on his hand and her lips trembling in his palm.</p>
<p>He knew what he was supposed to do.<br/>What was expected.<br/>What he was trained to do.</p>
<p><em>But</em> </p>
<p>The floral notes of her shampoo bled through his senses and the recount of the moments where she lost herself in a smile she never realised he saw held him back, tormenting him between two worlds.</p>
<p>
  <em>Two lives.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Two faces.</em>
</p>
<p>He <em>knew</em> how to kill her and he could make it as painless as possible.  He could noose his arm around her slender throat, hold it there and gently tighten it.  She would slip into unconsciousness before she died.</p>
<p>They would expect him to do that.</p>
<p>He had his orders.</p>
<p>He closed his eyes and tears melded with the rivers of water.</p>
<p>He knew what he had to do.</p>
<p>He wrapped his arm tighter around her waist as she slumped slightly in his arms.</p>
<p>
  <em>Two faces</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Become one.</em>
</p>
<p>His lips grazed her sodden cheek as he made his way to her ear, where he paused.<br/>“My name is Oliver Queen, I’m an undercover operative of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.”  </p>
<p>
  <strong>...</strong>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. || trust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ready for act ii?</p><p>First, Black Lives Matter. Still. Always.<br/>Second, never judge a person on someone else's opinion.<br/>Third, wearing a mask is an indicator of how much (or how little) you care about other people.</p><p> </p><p>Xox</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>The water had turned tepid and its relentless deluge sent a shiver down Felicity's spine as she stood alone, drenched, staring vacantly ahead of her and counting each breath that she took.</p><p>Time slipped like sand through the metaphorical hourglass and she had no idea how long she stayed, anchored and shivering.</p><p>It was only when Oliver reached in and shut off the faucet that Felicity registered his absence with a sudden, painful gasp.  His face was virtually unreadable, but what she did see was anger.</p><p>"We can't talk here," he said as he handed her a towel, pressing it firmly into her chest.  He spoke coldly, without any emotion and while she had come to learn that was not unusual for the enigma standing in front of her, in that moment his tone carried a heavy burden to them both.</p><p>There were already clean, dry clothes laid out for her on the vanity, but she had no recollection of seeing him place them there and again she wondered how long she had stood alone in the shower listening to his admission echo in her head.</p><p><em>Did she believe it? Could she believe it?</em> He was a trained, near brilliant liar, and if it was true, he'd shown his hand to her even though its toll was a hefty one.</p><p>He had no reason to lie, and yet she couldn't think of a single reason he would have to tell the truth.</p><p>He left the bathroom and she dressed in the dry clothes robotically, leaving the wet ones in a heap at the bottom of the shower.  Her hair was dripping and her face was riddled with droplets she hadn't patted away, but she hung her towel over the rail and walked out of the bathroom, each step taken like a trance.</p><p>She hadn't known what to expect, but when she walked into the bedroom, she found the laptop gone and a small knapsack on the bed.  Oliver closed a drawer on his desk when she appeared and, wordlessly, he took her hand, collected the bag and walked her to the door.</p><p>“Say nothing until I tell you to,” he whispered.  His voice was harsh, brittle and his tone carried such a finality to it that Felicity nodded almost immediately.</p><p>
  <em>Did she trust him?</em>
</p><p>She looked down at his hand and the butt of his gun tucked into his chest holster caught her attention; he could have killed her as easily as a spider kills a fly.</p><p>No one would have come to her rescue.<br/>
No one would have cared beyond a momentary silence.</p><p>She would have been a ghost at his choosing.</p><p>But, he hadn't.</p><p><em>Did she trust him?</em><br/>
<em>No.</em> But maybe, she should.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>They walked in step, Felicity’s more rushed than Oliver’s so that she kept speed with him.  His grip on her arm was tight, almost painful, and it definitely held her to a degree that she couldn’t slip away.</p><p>If he was telling the truth, his behaviour was far from a surprise.  If Oliver Queen was in fact a DEA agent; he was deep undercover in a world where such a truth would have you begging for death over what they would do.</p><p>And yet, he’d told her.<br/>
He knew nothing about who she was or what she was doing; only that it linked to a picture of a young woman he had filed away in a secret folder on his hard drive.  Telling her had put a target on his head, or at least made the one already there a little more visible; of course he wasn’t going to loosen his grip on her wrist.</p><p>No one gave them a second glance as he marched her, stone-faced and brusquely, out the front door, down the stairs and across the chipped-stone driveway to where his Audi was parked.</p><p>He opened the passenger door and pushed her towards the seat.  She didn’t resist and his hand came off her wrist before he closed the door gently.</p><p>She watched him walk around the front of the car, open the door behind the driver’s seat, and drop the knapsack he’d been carrying onto the floor.  A moment later, he slid into the driver’s seat, started the car, and took off.</p><p>Felicity toyed with the barrage of questions on the tip of her tongue; from the personal and insolent to the hysterical and impudent.  But, in the end, when her mouth finally opened, instead of a floodgate of questions, she started saying something else – a truth of her own.</p><p>“My name is Fel-,” she started as they drove the winding road at a speed which felt safe in its effortlessness, despite what the speedo registered.<br/>
But, her admission was interrupted before she could divulge her own truth.  “It’s best I don’t know,” Oliver remarked coolly, keeping his eyes glued to the road in front as his hands strangled the steering wheel.</p><p>She closed her lips tight and wondered about the meaning beside his interruption; the reason why he didn’t want to know her name or hadn’t asked her a single question.  In spite of the dark thoughts forming in her subconscious and the questions aching to be asked, Felicity held her tongue and left her hands folded genteelly on her lap.</p><p>For now, she would say nothing.<br/>
Ask nothing.<br/>
Give nothing.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Minutes passed, well over twenty, and the landscape had become increasingly unfamiliar and remote.  It ought to have worried her, and a year ago it probably would have.  But, for some reason and even though her face stayed guarded and void of emotion, she wasn’t afraid of what might happen; <em>had she so easily resigned herself to it before embarking on this journey?</em></p><p>Or, was her lack of fear simply a reflection of who she was with?</p><p>They pulled off the main road and headed down a dirt track that disappeared into twisted and dry vegetation until Oliver pulled to a stop a short while later.  Felicity looked around; the land was barren and secluded, and there was little else that could be said about the unremarkable landscape.</p><p>Oliver stopped the engine and the air around them fell into a heavy silence before Felicity, once again, broke it.</p><p>“Where are we?” she asked.  She kept her eyes tethered to the scenery; unwilling or afraid to meet Oliver’s icy stare once again.<br/>
“It’s better you don’t know,” he replied.  His voice had softened and when she glanced over, she noted his demeanour, perhaps, had too.</p><p>But, she also noted something else – Oliver’s eyes were trained on the rear view mirror, as though he was expecting something – or <em>someone</em>.</p><p>“Where is Alena?” Felicity asked with a stale, cold smile.<br/>
Oliver kept his eyes pasted to the mirror.<br/>
“I know you know,” Felicity added sharply.  Her voice softened, “please just tell me.”<br/>
He glanced at her briefly, but said nothing.<br/>
“If I’m going to die here, what does it matter what you tell me?”</p><p>Oliver saw the movement he was looking for and his shoulders stiffened as he looked down at Felicity.<br/>
“I need you to stay in the car,” he instructed.<br/>
But, she gave him no answer.  “Where is Alena?”<br/>
And, she gave him no choice.</p><p>Oliver pulled out a pair of handcuffs and fought her wrist into one, threaded it through the steering wheel and then closed it around her other wrist.<br/>
“I need you to stay here,” Oliver coached before he reached for the door handle.<br/>
“Please,” Felicity breathed, “tell me where she is.”</p><p>Oliver sighed sullenly as he stepped out from the car, and when he closed the door on her soft, angelic plea, he felt only regret and guilt stabbing at his chest.</p><p>He walked stoically towards the other figure that had emerged from a black sedan with dark windows and scuffed paintwork.  The man’s hands were in his pockets and, as they came closer to each other, both raised their hands, palms facing.  </p><p>The other one stopped, while Oliver bridged the gap.  They stood at an almost equal distance from either car and in a carefully orchestrated way where they could both see and hear any possible approaching vehicle without being seen or heard themselves.</p><p>“This isn’t a scheduled rendezvous, Oliver,” the man remarked, jovially, as he fed his large hands back into the pockets of his tan sports coat.  “You know how they like their schedules,” he added with a light jesting laugh.<br/>
But, Oliver kept his face as stoic as his thoughts.  “Did you come alone John?” he asked.<br/>
The other man’s spine stiffened and his shoulders straightened; it was clear whatever Oliver’s reasons for calling him, they weren’t for a jovial catch-up.<br/>
“Of course, <em>and</em> off record,” John answered.</p><p>John Diggle was only a little taller than Oliver, but his broad shoulders and bulky chest gave the illusion of a much larger man.  His black hair was clipped close to his scalp and faded around the edges.  His skin was dark; due mostly to his heritage but also likely to the years he’d spent in Sinaloa.  His carob eyes gave little of his thoughts away, but they were pensive in their expression, and they were the only ones that truly knew Oliver.</p><p>“I need you to take care of something,” Oliver began, pausing his words to exhale ominously.<br/>
“I already do the hotel pick-ups Oliver, you know,” John remarked, it was a feeble attempt at arguing, but the truth was – knowing what Oliver had sacrificed and what price he would ultimately pay for the same, he’d have his operative’s back whatever the ask.<br/>
“I know,” Oliver sighed.  John risked both his career and his freedom in ensuring the girls Oliver removed from the clutches of the Cártel de la Sangre found their way into asylum protection based on an ‘anonymous’ tip.  The DEA were far more concerned with the drug running than the prostitution and sex trafficking, but Oliver gave them what they needed and so they looked the other way when his contact John Diggle asked for a favour.</p><p>It was all unsaid of course.<br/>
Most things were for the sake of plausible deniability.</p><p>John shifted his weight from one foot to the other as his forebodingly-large arms banded across his chest.  But the giant man nodded his head gently and smiled, “what do you need?”</p><p>Oliver looked back towards his car and tipped his head in that direction.  “You might need to see this,” he commented as John followed him towards the car.<br/>
They stopped a few steps from the corner of the trunk.<br/>
“We have a problem,” Oliver grimaced.<br/>
John looked around into the window of the car to find Felicity staring back at him.  Her damp hair had dried somewhat into soft curls, but her eyes were sharp and her lips were impassive.</p><p>“Shit,” John grunted as he stepped back.<br/>
His jovial demeanour had completely vanished, replaced instead with a muted rage.<br/>
“That’s a big fucking problem Oliver, who the fuck is that?” John huffed, pacing a small circle as he came to grips with the gravity of the situation.  “What does she know?”<br/>
Oliver tore a hand through his darkened hair.  “Everything, enough,” he sighed.<br/>
“How?”<br/>
Oliver’s shoulders slumped as he dropped his hand into his pockets.  “I told her.”<br/>
“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re kidding?”<br/>
John hopelessly waited for Oliver to crack a smile, but that never came.<br/>
“You’re not kidding, Jesus, Fuck,” John muttered, still pacing.  “If she knows who you are this entire operation is in jeopardy.”<br/>
“I know,” Oliver replied calmly.<br/>
“Why?”<br/>
“I didn’t have another choice.”<br/>
John laughed erratically.  “She’s what 170 pounds, 5 foot 4? And you couldn’t subdue her?”<br/>
“She’s here isn’t she?”<br/>
“She shouldn’t be.”<br/>
“Noted.”</p><p>The two men stared at each other silently, before John sighed gruffly and shrugged his shoulders.<br/>
“You know what you’re supposed to do,” he said, resignation in his voice.<br/>
Oliver pulled the gun from his waistband, turned it so he held the barrel and then offered the handle to John.  “It would be my duty to shoot her, but after five fucking years, I’m tired of my duty.”</p><p>John pushed the gun away with a heavy sigh; <em>they both were.</em><br/>
“What do you need?” he asked.<br/>
“Get her out of Sinaloa, out of the country,” Oliver responded.<br/>
“If she knows who you are, we can’t risk that, you know they’ll ask,” John countered.<br/>
“Arrest her, put her in an isolated detention cell for a month, I don’t care.  After that, it won’t really matter now will it?” Oliver shrugged.<br/>
Another weighty sigh shifted John’s chest.  “I’ll see what I can do.”  He stepped around Oliver and closer to the car door.  “What’s her name?”<br/>
“I don’t know,” Oliver remarked, “but she’s looking for Alena.”<br/>
John’s head jerked back as he looked at Oliver over his shoulder.</p><p>That was a whole other problem.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Alena's fingers were white as she twisted them in tight coils.  It had been two days since she'd been allowed out.  While she was glad not to be trapped in the room with the heavy scent of cigarette smoke and the foreboding presence of a man who, frankly, resembled a wall, she knew the realities that the less they needed her, the more expendable she would become.</p><p><em>She could stall, but to what end? </em><br/>
Who was looking for her.<br/>
When she'd agreed to face the demons of the underworld, she had agreed that if something was to happen; she was a phantom. A ghost. A no one.</p><p>They wouldn't look.</p><p>It was funny what she had been prepared to do to find a friend; to appease her own guilt.</p><p>
  <em>For Amanda.</em>
</p><p>She shouldn't have lost her in that club.  She shouldn't have accepted what they told her five years ago.  Her girlfriend would never have simply left; Amanda wasn't like that.</p><p>But, at 18 herself, Alena accepted what the officers told her.  Especially him; she remembered him vividly.  She'd thought him kind, understanding, but he was a monster.</p><p>Just like the rest of them.</p><p>Alena closed her eyes and where tears would have originally cut wet paths down her sooty cheeks, she felt only the aching pain of guilt and eyes that had cried too much already.</p><p>The sound of heavy footsteps had Alena on her feet and pressed into the dimmest corner of the concrete cell, ominously holding her breath.</p><p>The door opened; slow and spiteful.</p><p>She swallowed the dry air like knives.</p><p>But the wall stopped at the door without even glancing her direction and dumped a crumpled heap onto the dirt, cold floor.</p><p>Alena didn't move until she heard the footsteps grow silent and then, on the balls of her feet, she moved towards the heap.</p><p>She reached down and touched the slender shoulder and she expected to find it cold.  But, the girl was alive.</p><p>Her dark hair was matted with a tacky, viscose substance and a gash across her forehead provided the answer, it was blood.  Her eyes were bruised, her small frame twisted into a foetal position.  But, she was alive.</p><p>Her breathing was shallow and the small noises she made were fragile and weak; but she was alive.</p><p>“It's okay,” Alena whispered as she went back to her corner to collect the half empty water bottle she drunk sparingly from.</p><p>When she returned, she helped the young girl to sit up before she offered her a drink.<br/>
“What's your name?” Alena asked as she unscrewed the bottle cap.<br/>
The woman took a drink, slow and deliberate.</p><p>It was a few moments before Alena got an answer to her question.<br/>
“Carmen,” she spoke, her voice hoarse.  “My name is Carmen.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
John opened the driver’s side door and noted the blonde in the passenger side didn’t even flinch.  Whoever she was, she was tenacious and fierce.  He had to admire that.<br/>
“You must be seven?” he remarked, referencing the room number that had been empty.  He glanced over the cusp of his shoulder and Oliver nodded slightly.<br/>
“And who does that make you?” she asked frankly.<br/>
John smiled, he could see why Oliver had found himself drawn to her – even if the hardened agent would never admit it.  “It’s better you don’t know,” he answered simply.<br/>
“Funny,” Felicity said dryly, “Oliver said the same thing when I asked where we were.”<br/>
“He wasn’t wrong,” John remarked.  He stood his massive frame upright with his elbow leaning on the edge of the car door.  “Is she going to give me any trouble?” he asked Oliver.<br/>
In reply Oliver shrugged as an infinitesimal smile curled up just the tips of his mouth.  “Probably.”</p><p>John sighed, loud enough to be deemed purposefully dramatic before he opened his palm.  “Give me the key and we’ll get her into my car.”<br/>
Oliver handed him the small silver handcuff key and John bent down to unlock the handcuff, carefully keeping one eye on Felicity, who wasn’t moving.  As he twisted the lock and the cuff loosened on Felicity’s wrist, she kicked violently out towards him, catching him in the nose and sending John stumbling backwards, dazed.  </p><p>She tore open her door and ran into the deserted rest stop, but she got only a few yards before Oliver’s large arms once again enveloped her around the waist and her feet lifted off the ground.</p><p>“Calm down Megan,” he whispered as she struggled in his arms.  “You can trust him.”<br/>
“I can’t even trust you,” she spat as she wriggled in his grip.<br/>
He set her down slowly, but kept his arms around her waist.  She could feel his warm, soft breath dappling down her neck as his tackle slowly morphed into an embrace.  On instinct, she turned in his arms until their eyes met and their faces stood only a few inches from each other.<br/>
“Can I trust you?” she asked, her chest rising with a shaky inhale.<br/>
She felt his thumb circle the small of her back, like he’d done before in moments of intimacy. <br/>
“Yes,” he promised, breathy and whispered, “I need you to.”</p><p>Felicity’s eyes welled with unspent tears that she held back with every fibre of willpower she possessed.  She could see John walking towards them, wiping a dribble of blood from below his nose, before her eyes returned to Oliver’s, diving into them, looking for something she knew was there; his soul.</p><p>“Please,” she begged as her trembling fingers grazed the edge of his jaw, “please tell me where Alena is.”<br/>
She watched as a breath hitched in his throat and his eyes turned towards the other man.<br/>
“Tell her John, tell her where Alena is,” he instructed, his tone as cold as ice.</p><p>Felicity had thought the two men friends, and perhaps that inclination was right.  But whatever Alena had to do with them, it was clearly a source of friction.<br/>
“Oliver, it’s not the time,” John said, his jaw tensing as his back molars grinded against each other.<br/>
“She has a right to know,” Oliver responded.<br/>
“It wasn’t my call.”<br/>
“You know damn well it was.”</p><p>John hands rubbed, agitated, over his tightly cropped hair before he hung his head. “Oliver,” he warned.  But, it fell on deaf ears.<br/>
“You tell her, or I will,” Oliver argued.<br/>
“Alena, Kojo, was recruited after she uncovered some unauthorised shipments in the Starling Port,” John answered succinctly, but Felicity could tell there was more to the story than he was letting on, and she was unwilling to simply let it slide.<br/>
“She was looking for missing girls, not unauthorised shipments,” Felicity rebutted and she saw the flash of surprise grace the older man’s expression for a moment.<br/>
“How do you know what she was looking for?” he asked cautiously.<br/>
Felicity folded her arms across her chest and took a long, deep breath; hoping her instincts would prove her right.<br/>
“Tell me where she is and I’ll tell you what I know.”<br/>
“He doesn’t know where she is,” Oliver interrupted, much to John’s dismay.</p><p>“We had a security breach a few months ago and the safe house she was in was raided,” John explained, wearily.<br/>
“By who?” Felicity queried.<br/>
She could tell by the look on John’s face he knew about as much as she did when it came to that.<br/>
“We don’t know,” he admitted.<br/>
“Where are you looking?”<br/>
The older man shifted his weight from one foot to the other.<br/>
“You’re not looking for her are you?”<br/>
He sighed, disjointed.  “She knew the risks and we can’t risk the other operations.”  It was a scripted answer, one filled with bureaucracy and bullshit.<br/>
“She’s not an agent, she’s a hacker and a data analyst,” Felicity reacted coldly as her arms banded tighter around her waist. </p><p>“We should get going,” John remarked.  They’d already been there too long.<br/>
Oliver nodded before he turned to Felicity.  The smile he wore was fragile but warm and seeing it shook a tear from Felicity’s eye.<br/>
“I need you to go with him,” Oliver explained, his voice soft enough that it carried only to her as John stepped away.<br/>
She shook her head weakly.  “Not without Alena.”<br/>
“John’s not as heartless as he seems, he’s asked me to look for her and I will,” Oliver continued as he thumb brushed away a second tear from her cheek.  “But you need to leave, go with John and he’ll take you somewhere safe.”<br/>
“She’s alive Oliver,” she whispered.</p><p>His smile grew a little more, comforting and kind, he understood her need to believe that – he was akin to the same belief himself despite the years ebbing away without any validity for it.</p><p>“I’ve seen her, she’s alive,” Felicity reiterated, her voice raising slightly; enough that John heard.<br/>
“What do you mean you’ve seen her?”<br/>
“She left a digital path up until a few days ago, she’s alive.”<br/>
“Leave a path for what?”<br/>
“What you said,” Felicity said, turning towards John as he approached, “something about shipments, bypassing customs, some sort of skeleton key.”<br/>
John pressed his fingers into his temple and rubbed them slowly.  “She said that’s what it looked like they were creating.”<br/>
“Whoever <em>they</em> is, she was right, but now they have her building it.”<br/>
“How do you know this?”<br/>
“Alena breached your firewalls and got into your system didn’t she?”<br/>
John nodded slowly.<br/>
“So who do you think taught her how to do that?”<br/>
John looked at Oliver.</p><p>“You want their suppliers, their routes, and their contacts, right?” Felicity continued, but neither man answered.  “I find Alena, I can give you all that.”<br/>
“You think you’re so good that you can find what we can’t?” John remarked.<br/>
Felicity turned to Oliver.  “I know who you are, but do you know who I am?”<br/>
“I had contacts look into her past John, they found nothing,” Oliver confirmed.<br/>
“Nothing I didn’t want you to find anyway,” she added.</p><p>“Help me find Alena, and I’ll help you find whatever you want,” Felicity promised as she held her hand out to John.<br/>
“If this goes wrong, we can’t-“<br/>
“Protect me?” Felicity finished, “I know.”</p><p>“Oliver, this has to be your decision, the agency has rules I can’t circumvent,” John said, “not again.”<br/>
There was clearly guilt in his voice that didn’t go unnoticed.</p><p>“Megan,” Oliver started as she turned to face him.  His hands ached to cup her face, to relish in the comfort he’d found himself drawn to after so many years clouded with darkness.<br/>
“My name is Felicity,” she breathed, offering him a thread of truth.<br/>
A smile warmed the apples of his cheeks.</p><p>“Felicity,” he whispered.  It suited her.  “It’s too dangerous.”<br/>
“I won’t give up on her, with or without you, I won’t stop looking,” she promised.</p><p>He didn’t doubt that for a moment.</p><p><br/>
<strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Oliver pulled the car off the road alongside a lookout hidden amidst the hilly landscape.  The view was a magnificent one on that day; the skies were clear and vividly blue, the ocean in the distance looked like diamonds as the sun perched high above it, and the gentle breeze that passed through the valleys swayed the stoic trees like a gentle chant.</p><p>There was little to be done about it now, no turning back from a decision that was made with a weight in his chest and a worry furrowed into his brow.  Every decision he’d made in the last 5 years had the propensity to be life or death; but it had only been his own at stake.  He’d made each choice, each decision, as concisely and confidently as he could, well aware that each or any could have been his last.</p><p>He’d made his peace with that.<br/>
He’d made his peace with knowing he could never return to the life he once had.</p><p>He just hoped, in the end, that it would have been worth it.</p><p>But now… now things were different.</p><p>He looked over to the passenger seat where Felicity sat, quiet and reflective, her eyes scoping the world around her.</p><p>“I need to know everything you know,” he said softly, though his hands gripped the steering wheel with a deep concentration.<br/>
Each decision he would make from there on out, would involve her life too.<br/>
“Where should I start?” she asked.</p><p>Oliver sighed, heavy and lumbered.  “From the beginning.”</p><p>Her name was Felicity Smoak, she lived and worked in Starling; his hometown – though their paths had never crossed.  Alena Whitlock was her roommate, a friend she had soon enough taken under her wing some 6 years ago.  They were both hacktivists just trying to keep the world a little more fair and transparent.  She didn’t know why Alena went looking for the missing girls, or why she kept that from Felicity.</p><p>After she went missing, Felicity searched for her using every avenue she could.  She saw what Alena had left for her on her laptop and she embarked on a journey that took her to the Cártel’s doorstep and, ultimately, led her to Oliver.</p><p>Oliver had his own explanations to give; firstly that he hadn’t known about John’s commission of Alena, not until a few months ago when the safe house was compromised and Alena had gone missing.  The DEA had forbidden any resources be used to track her down and find her; perhaps fearing that it could undermine the case Oliver had been building for the last 5 years.</p><p>All they cared about was the money trail.  It may have sounded embittered and jaded, but it was the truth.  Oliver had come looking for missing girls, but finding them had eventually become secondary to the powers that held the strings.</p><p>Still, he had turned vigilante where he could, taking girls to John who would then give them safe passage and a new start.  It wasn’t much and to Oliver it felt like he was bailing out a sinking ship with a spoon, but it was enough to preserve just a little bit of his humanity, or at least he hoped so.</p><p>“Do you think you’re ready for this?” Oliver asked when all had been said and done.<br/>
Felicity looked at him with laser focus and an unflinching lip.<br/>
“I have to be,” she answered.</p><p>
  <em>For Alena.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. || cross</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>TW// this chapter contains references to sex trafficking, domestic abuse, assault, and dubious consent (section specifically marked).  Please be mindful of this.  If you or someone you love is in need of help, please reach out to an organisation which can help</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domestic_violence_hotlines</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“Why Amanda?” Felicity asked.  There was tameness in her voice as she explored what this new Oliver, <em>the real one</em>, would be willing to tell her.<br/>
“Why was it her case that led me here?” Oliver clarified, his eyes drifting down to his lap; he hadn’t spoken about Amanda in years, not even to John.<br/>
“You sacrificed a lot to try and find her,” Felicity added softly.<br/>
“At the time she was abducted she was only a few years older than my sister, she was just out enjoying herself.  She had friends, a future,” he paused to collect his thoughts and the memories associated with them.  “When I had to tell her parents, they were beside themselves.  She’d just come out to them and they were surprised and worried for her I guess.”<br/>
“They didn’t want her out?”<br/>
Oliver could still hear the broken sob of Amanda's mother.  “They were good people, just surprised, but when I spoke with them they said it made no difference to them and that whoever she loved would be okay to them.  They thought maybe because they had been taken off guard, she’d been upset and run away.”<br/>
“Had she?”<br/>
“By all accounts, she wasn’t mad at them, she knew they were just surprised.  She was a good kid, smart, happy, someone people gravitated towards.  Her and some friends were at a nightclub dancing, she went to the bathroom and ended up getting separated from her friends.  No one saw her again, she just vanished.  I never got the impression she would have run away.”</p><p>“Your friend Alena,” Oliver carried on, lifting his gaze to make and keep eye contact with Felicity.  “She was one of the girls with Amanda that night.  I think they were very close.”</p><p>Felicity took in Oliver's words with a long, considered breath.  She had known Alena was bisexual, that part was not a surprise, but the fact she had been close to a girl who had been abducted; that was something Alena had kept to herself even as she dug it all up years later looking for an answer.  </p><p>“She never told me about Amanda,” Felicity answered quietly.  “I wished she could have felt she could.”</p><p>
  <em>Maybe things would be different.</em>
</p><p>“I'm sure she thought she was protecting you,” Oliver offered and Felicity nodded; that sounded like Alena.<br/>
“I recognised her when John sent me her picture.  She looked older, but the same in a way,” Oliver continued.  “I guess she came looking for me, hoping to find the same thing I was looking for.  She just didn't know.”<br/>
“How did you go from that to this?” Felicity asked, “it’s quite the leap from a studious detective on the hunt for a missing girl to an undercover operative in a notorious Cártel.”<br/>
He smiled, it was soft but fleeting.<br/>
“I noticed Amanda wasn’t the only one and that there was more to this, what I uncovered put me on their radar,” he explained, as best he could.  There was much more to it, but the clandestine nature of his job meant there was very little he could tell her that would make sense.  “Long story short I was approached and asked to assist the DEA.  The link between missing girls and shipments arriving and leaving wasn’t a coincidence and it all tied back to the Sangre.”<br/>
“So your arrest and trial?”<br/>
“A farce, but a necessary one.  To my friends, my family, anyone that knew me, it was real.”<br/>
There was a sadness in his tone and a heavy weight sitting on his shoulders.<br/>
“You gave up a lot.”<br/>
He offered her a faint smile.  That thought was nothing new to him, but hearing the words through someone else’s mouth seemed to make it all the more real.<br/>
“I’ve spent five years giving over the names of suppliers, contacts, routes, hideouts.  It’s halfway across the world and it has its fingers in at least 20, maybe more, State governments.  This is bigger than any of us realised at the start.”<br/>
“When Alena started looking into you…,” Felicity started, taking a pause as she imagined the anguish her friend must have felt.<br/>
“She must have triggered something in the system, I don’t know,” Oliver replied frankly.  Much of the DEA workings were kept from agents like him in the event they turned rogue or, possibly more likely, their cover was blown and they were tortured.</p><p>You couldn’t get the answers you wanted if the agent never knew them to begin with; no matter what measures you were willing to take.</p><p>“John said she believed they were on the verge of finding a way to go below the radar, to move things in and out of countries without anyone noticing.  It was supplementary to the work I was doing, so,” Oliver paused, he could see the tears welling in Felicity’s eyes and he could sense her pain.  “I’m sorry, this must be a lot for you to hear.”<br/>
“John said there was a breach, what did he mean?” Felicity asked after she’d brushed back a stray tear that was rolling down her cheek.<br/>
“Someone knew where the safe house was,” Oliver replied.<br/>
“Was anyone else taken?”<br/>
He ran a troubled hand through his hair.  “Everyone else was shot on site.”<br/>
“Why would they take her?”<br/>
“I don’t know,” he breathed.<br/>
“And how did they know she was there?”<br/>
“Felicity,” he said her name quietly, still getting used to the way it sounded.</p><p>She could tell the inference in his tone, like there were things he couldn’t say out loud.  So, she said it for him, “someone knew where they were, which means someone told them.”<br/>
He said nothing, but his expression told Felicity all she needed; <em>she was right.</em><br/>
“And John thinks that too doesn’t he?”<br/>
“In this job, we’re trained to think like that,” Oliver answered candidly.<br/>
“He thinks it’s Alena, that’s why you’re looking for her, not to save her,” as Felicity spoke she could feel her body tense and her anger rise.  “John didn’t send you to look for a victim, he sent you to look for mole.”<br/>
“It would make sense,” Oliver said.  He was weary and it showed in his demeanour.  He’d been gone too long; living two lives where you couldn’t trust anyone from either.</p><p>“Not if you knew her,” Felicity promised, her voice cracking as a tear slipped from her eye.  “She isn’t complicit in this Oliver, I know that with my whole heart.  What they have her doing, she’s being forced to do that.”<br/>
Oliver looked across the car at her and he could tell she believed it with her whole soul, and for the first time, he believed, he saw her without her walls.</p><p>“You believe the Sangre have her?” he asked.<br/>
Felicity nodded, “Whatever she is constructing, she’s doing it for them.”<br/>
But Oliver seemed unconvinced.  “I would have heard about it.”<br/>
“Not necessarily,” Felicity started, shifting to the edge of her seat as she talked.  “Whoever is doing this is hiding it beneath layers of firewalls.”<br/>
“You said you found the trail on our system.”<br/>
“But beneath everything else.  It was hidden, way more than you would need to internally.  It’s funnelling through the Cártel, but secretly.”<br/>
“Who?” Oliver asked rhetorically.  If what Felicity was saying was true, the implications were dangerous to anyone caught in the crossfire.<br/>
“Adrian?” Felicity surmised.<br/>
“I doubt it, Adrian is a face-to-face guy and he doesn’t have much faith in anything beyond that.  He says you can’t smell a person’s fear or torture the truth from their eyes over the internet.  Besides which, he wouldn’t have the pull to do something like this,” Oliver retorted.  To keep secrets from your Blood was a death sentence – if you were lucky.<br/>
“Matías?”<br/>
“He’s ambitious,” Oliver agreed, “but he’d have no reason to hide it.  Eventually, he’ll take over from Javier, in a few years likely, going about it this way could cost him everything.  It would be stupid and he’s not.”<br/>
“Ángel?”<br/>
Oliver opened his mouth to speak, but he found no rebuttal.</p><p>Ángel had the means; he made connections deeper underground than Oliver had ever been able to infiltrate.  He had the ambition; wanting for something that was never going to be his.  And, he had the callous self-indulgence to take it; with force, from his own father.</p><p>What Miguel had said, rung true faced with that proposition.</p><p>Ángel was setting himself up to take his father down.</p><p>“A Coup d'état?” Felicity breathed.<br/>
Even she knew what that would mean.<br/>
Oliver started the car.  “If that’s the case then we need to find Alena, and fast.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Before they arrived back at the compound, Oliver explained that there was nowhere within the walls of the house where they could speak candidly and that Felicity wasn’t to go anywhere without him.  She agreed without retort.</p><p>In the compound, she was Megan, the obedient girlfriend.  <br/>
And he was Oliver, the Cártel de la Sangre’s General.</p><p>Gabriella met them in the foyer of the main house.  She was smiling and had a drink in her hand, but something about her demeanour seemed off to Felicity as she kept moving her eyes towards Oliver.</p><p>“Come sit with me by the pool,” she preened kindly as she looped her arm through Felicity’s.<br/>
Felicity, acting on her gut, leaned up and kissed the scruff along Oliver’s jaw.  “Wait for me by the pool while I get changed?” she hummed provocatively.<br/>
“I want to see you in the yellow one,” Oliver instructed, taking up his role flawlessly.</p><p>They parted and Felicity headed up the stairs with Gabriella for company.  Once inside the bedroom, Gabriella’s painted smile disappeared and her nervous energy gave way to tears.</p><p>“Gabriella, what’s wrong?” Felicity asked as she locked the door behind them.<br/>
“It’s Carmen, she’s missing,” Gabriella whispered, as though afraid of her own voice.<br/>
“What do you mean she’s missing?”<br/>
“I went to go see her this morning just after breakfast like we do every morning, but she wasn’t there.”  As she spoke, Gabriella collapsed onto the bed and hung her head in her hands.<br/>
“What did Ángel say?” Felicity asked, opting to stand instead of sit.<br/>
“He said he didn’t know, that she went out to get her hair done or something.”<br/>
“And you don’t think he’s telling the truth?”<br/>
“She wouldn’t,” Gabriella spoke through her tears.  “We came here at the same time, we know how it all works here,” she continued, her voice shaky and brittle, “we both made sure to tell each other when we were going out, she wouldn’t have just gone out.  She would have told me.”<br/>
“What about Adriana?”<br/>
“She said she didn’t know anything.” Gabriella brushed her tears away angrily.  “He’s done something to her, I just know it.”</p><p>“Does Annika know anything?”<br/>
Gabriella shook her head and her light brown curls tumbled over her face.  “But she was out running around the fence line early this morning and she said she never saw anyone leave, only you and Oliver.”<br/>
“And you’ve tried calling her?”<br/>
A minuscule nod before she covered her face with her hands again.  “It goes straight to voicemail.”</p><p>“When Ángel leaves in the afternoon, we’ll go over there,” Felicity promised.<br/>
Gabriella nodded softly.  “You don’t get many friends in this world, Carmen was mine,” she said quietly.<br/>
“In the meantime,” Felicity encouraged as she walked towards the drawers and found her yellow swimsuit, “try not to do anything to attract attention, and just pretend everything is normal.”<br/>
Gabriella stood up and retrieved her drink from the bedside table.  “That’s what us girlfriends do best,” she said sadly before she painted a smile back on her expression.</p><p>It was true, being a girlfriend necessitated being an excellent actress.</p><p><br/>
<strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
Like clockwork, Ángel left the property in his dark Lincoln just after 2:00 pm and Felicity and Gabriella made their way to his house a little after that.</p><p>It was Adriana who came to the door.  She was in a loose pair of tracksuit pants and an oversized t-shirt.  Her hair was messy and tied in a bun near her crown.  Her cheeks were flushed and a strong smell of bleach permeated the air when she opened the door.</p><p>“Where is Carmen?” Gabriella asked curtly.<br/>
“I don’t know,” Adriana replied, her voice was hoarse and brittle.<br/>
“I know that you know something you little snake,” Gabriella hissed raising her fist to strike.<br/>
Adriana flinched but didn’t move away, even before Felicity pulled Gabriella back before she could make good on the move.<br/>
“Please, Adriana, where is she? What happened?”</p><p>Adriana stepped out onto the porch, looking around carefully before she sunk back into the quiet house.  “Come inside, quickly,” she whispered as she ushered them in.</p><p>Before either Felicity or Gabriella could say anything, Adriana put a finger to her mouth to keep them silent, before she walked them quickly through the foyer, across the small dining room, and then into the kitchen.  From there she opened the butler’s pantry and switched on the light before she gestured them inside.</p><p>Wearily, Felicity stepped in and Gabriella followed her.  The pantry was more of a room, large enough to house a double fridge and a standalone freezer, together with floor to ceiling shelving and a preparation area.  She moved them towards the corner by the freezer with it’s low, ambient hum.</p><p>“I don’t know where she is, I’m not lying,” Adriana said quietly.  “Ángel has recording devices all over this house, but not right here.  He can’t hear us here.” she continued, a sigh dropping her rigid shoulders.<br/>
“What do you know?” Felicity enquired.<br/>
“Last night Carmen went to bed the same time I did, the same time Gloria showed up at the house,” Adriana began to explain, “Gloria was angry so we made ourselves scarce and went upstairs like we always do.  I was reading when Carmen knocked on my door.  Her room is closer to the stairs and she said she’d heard Gloria and Ángel arguing.”<br/>
“That wouldn’t be anything new,” Gabriella added.<br/>
“That’s what I said, but she was sure there was something different about it and she wanted to get closer to hear it.”<br/>
“What did she do?” Felicity pressed.<br/>
“I don’t know, I told her to go back to her room and then I went back into mine.”<br/>
Gabriella wasn’t satisfied.  “You must have heard something?!”<br/>
“This house makes noises I don’t like to hear,” Adriana whispered, her fear apparent and not forged.  “I sleep with headphones on to drown out the ghosts.”</p><p>“What about this morning, did you see her?”<br/>
Adriana shook her head.  “She never came down to breakfast.  But there were some red marks on the wall by the stairs Ángel wanted me to clean up.”<br/>
“And what do you think that was?” Gabriella hissed.<br/>
“And what do you think I should have done?” Adriana spat back, “Disappeared with her? What answers would I have gotten by asking any questions?”</p><p>There was a sad truth in her words, there was no one to turn to, no right to ask or to know; if she had dared to refuse, Adriana would have found herself with the same fate.  There was no denying that.</p><p>“Was it a lot of blood?” Felicity asked.<br/>
Adriana shook her head, “I’ve cleaned up a lot more,” she answered, hushed, as she wrapped her arms around her waist.  “He was just angry at seeing it I suppose, I don’t know.  It was just a few spots like you get when they hit you.”<br/>
She spoke as if that was something the girls could relate to, and by her expression, Gabriella understood.</p><p>“If he had her, where would he take her?” Felicity asked.  If Ángel had his secrets, there was a chance Adriana knew them.<br/>
“I, I don’t know,” Adriana whispered, but her hesitation told Felicity she knew more.<br/>
“But you know something,” Felicity said softly as she took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.<br/>
“There is a book,” Adriana breathed,  a stoic curtain falling over her expression, “a ledger that he keeps of every girl he’s had or sold like he’s proud of it.  Maybe he wrote her on it.”</p><p>
  <em>Maybe Alena was on the same ledger.</em>
</p><p>“Where does he keep this book, in the house?”<br/>
Adriana shook her head slowly, “The Den.”<br/>
“What’s the Den?” Felicity asked, noting Gabriella’s face had turned pale.<br/>
“A place you don’t come back from,” she whispered ominously.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The moon was high and the breeze was warm and gentle as Felicity and Oliver had taken a secluded walk around the compound.  There was no shortage of patrols roaming as though it was a military fortress, but they paid Oliver no mind as he groped Felicity in one of the dim corners against the wall of the indoor pool.</p><p>Keeping up the façade, Felicity tousled her hands through his thick hair and rode her pelvis into his chest while one leg coiled around the back of his thighs.</p><p>In hushed whispers she had told him everything Gabriella and Adriana had told her, about Carmen and about the book, and her own thoughts on whether they could learn the whereabouts of both Amanda and Alena in the pages of the same.</p><p>But when she told him where Adriana said the book could be found, she felt a shift in Oliver’s body language as he tensed up.<br/>
“You know the Den?” she asked before she provocatively ran her hands down the cords of his back for the gratification of the nearby guard who’d been staring at them just a little longer than he needed.<br/>
“It’s where Ángel and Nicolás hold the auctions for the girls they traffic.  It’s in the basement of a nightclub owned by Nicolás,” Oliver explained covertly as he nestled his face under Felicity’s long hair.<br/>
“You’ve been there?” she breathed, burying her face in his neck.<br/>
He lifted up her skirt enough that his fingers brushed over the rounds of her ass before he turned to the nearby ogler and spoke.<br/>
“You want to take a picture before I come over there and fuck you up for looking?” he hissed and the voyeur quickly hurried away.</p><p>Once they were no longer being directly watched, Oliver’s hands fell away from Felicity’s body, but his stance still protectively caged her in.</p><p>“No, Javier keeps his hands clean from it, but allows Nicolás to do what he pleases provided they get a cut of the proceeds.  Nicolás doesn’t extend invitations to just anyone, and he doesn’t trust me enough,” Oliver quietly explained.<br/>
“So how do we get in there?”<br/>
“There might be a way, someone who could get us an invitation, but,”<br/>
“But what?”<br/>
“He was the man that was going to buy you Felicity, José Fernandez, he holds a lot of sway with Nicolás and he usually attends.”<br/>
Oliver’s face was fraught with worry and anxiety, a brief break in his practised demeanour.<br/>
“You offer me to him, and we get through the door?”<br/>
“He’ll be at the compound tomorrow evening.”<br/>
“You have a plan?” Felicity asked calmly, although her insides were anything but.<br/>
“I have an idea, but Felicity,” he whispered, pressing his cheek to hers, “it might cross a line.”<br/>
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she replied in kind.</p><p>For Alena.<br/>
For Amanda.<br/>
For every girl that was just like them.</p><p><br/>
<strong>//</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>TW // this section contains some aspects of dubious consent and domestic abuse.  While it is, in fact, a display with full consent, I am conscious that it is written in a way to elude to something else.  Please be mindful of this if either of those are triggers to you</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Their eyes made contact across the room.  To anyone watching it would have been fleeting, a momentary glance between lovers.  But, to them it was assurance; a silent acceptance of the moments that would follow.</p><p>And understanding that it had to.</p><p>Her dark red dress splayed as she walked, the chiffon fabric floating up with the momentum of each measured step she took.  She had gotten ready that night with careful consideration and Oliver had zipped up her dress in silence.  </p><p>It was set in motion.</p><p><em>For Alena.</em><br/>
<em>For Amanda</em>.</p><p>She took her cues from Oliver, his large frame dressed in a black shirt opened at the collar and ash toned trousers.  His expression was void of any warmth and for a moment she admired how deeply he played his part, callous and cruel.</p><p>With a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other, Oliver beckoned her over with the hand that held the lit cigar.  As she took her first step, he shared a joke with a man beside him with peppery hair and a weathered face.</p><p>As she moved closer the other men in Oliver's immediate circle continued their debauchery with prostitutes and partook freely of the cocaine spread out on the table in the centre.  It was a country club of sorts, you paid an exorbitant cost, either in money or in favours, and you were rewarded with samples of cocaine at hedonistic events such as the one going on that night.</p><p>It kept the Cártel’s coffers filled with money and it’s pockets lined with favours – or, if necessary, blackmail ammunition.  Much like Javier’s party, the intimate pool room was filled with the rich and influential.  The lights were dimmed and a hazy mist of cigar and cigarette smoke clouded the air.  There was little in the way of music, but the clunking sound of pool balls running into each other and the conversations between guests provided all the ambient noise needed.</p><p>Noise which the galloping thump of Felicity’s pulse drowned out.  </p><p>Her hair was loose and Felicity found herself feathering her fingers through the ends as she made the last few steps.</p><p>“Megan,” Oliver purred her name as though liquor made his tone permanently amused, “meet José.”<br/>
He pointed to the other man whose weathered face lit up with a smile that sent a shiver down Felicity's spine.</p><p>“Good evening,” she said politely.<br/>
Oliver set his empty glass on the table and slouched back into the suede couch with one ankle balanced on the opposite knee.</p><p>“I've told him you have a fantastic ass,” Oliver laughed before he took a long draw on his cigar.<br/>
Felicity said nothing but answered with a demure smile, as would be expected.<br/>
“He doesn't believe me,” Oliver continued, still jovial in his demeanour.<br/>
The other man laughed, it was brittle and harsh to her ears, but still, Felicity didn't react.</p><p>Oliver continued to smoke before he leaned forward, putting both feet back on the ground.  “Turn around,” he requested and Felicity obliged, turning 180 with her hands wrapped around her waist.<br/>
“That's a fantastic ass,” Oliver announced, grabbing the attention of some of the other men nearby.  “Come, come,” he purred as he beckoned Felicity with a flick of his wrist.<br/>
Wordlessly she walked around the end of the table and stood between Oliver's legs.</p><p>With the cigar braced between his smiling lips, Oliver slipped his hands under the flimsy skirt of Felicity's dress and palmed the back of her thighs firmly before he slid them up to the round of her ass.</p><p>He gripped her tightly making a hiss fall out from between her parted lips.<br/>
“Fucking, perfect ass,” he growled after one hand fell away to pluck the cigar from his mouth.  “I fuck her on all fours so I can watch it bounce,” he added, laughing before he slapped it.  It sounded much harder than it actually felt, but Felicity reacted with a small jolt to sell it.</p><p>“Show him,” Oliver said, his eyes snapping up to Felicity and much of the humour in his voice had disappeared.<br/>
“Pardon?” Felicity asked, perfecting a subtle quiver in her voice.  These girls were afraid of their men, she needed to appear to be as well.</p><p>“Take off your fucking dress and show him your ass,” Oliver laughed, his tone was firm but coy.<br/>
“I,” she breathed, her voice trembling, “I don't want to.”</p><p>In a pause their eyes met.<br/>
<em>What had to happen.</em></p><p>Oliver stood up and leaned around Felicity to rest the embering cigar on the edge of a glass ashtray.  His presence was imposing and he stood so close to her that she could feel the heat of his breath on her face.</p><p>His rough fingers drew slowly up her cheek and tucked a bouncy blonde curl behind her ear.<br/>
“You don't want to?” he asked quietly, his voice a fraction above a whisper, but his tone was wry.<br/>
She bowed her head subserviently.  “I'll just fill up your drink,” she whispered before she leaned down to collect his empty glass.</p><p>She moved to turn away and he let her get a foot away from him before his hand moved to the back of her head and his fingers knotted in her hair.  He turned her back sharply by the fistful of hair and slammed his lips onto her.  The kiss was demanding, as his grip tightened in her hair, pulling at the roots enough to make her gasp against his lips.</p><p>Just as forcefully as he had kissed her, he severed the same, but kept her head tipped up and his lips barely half an inch from hers.</p><p>“I tell you when you leave,” he spoke dryly.  She could hear the rasp in his voice and she could see the way his jaw tensed.</p><p>They had an audience, silent and enthralled as though the harshness in his voice made them excited.  He could feel them watching him, and knowing what they expected he raised his right hand above her left cheek.</p><p>He pulled it back, lifting it high before he snapped it back down like a whip.  Reactively Felicity flinched but his hand stayed just above her cheek, never connecting the strike.</p><p>The same hand then fell down her body until he reached between her legs where he pushed her panties to the side and dragged his middle digit through her folds.  Her eyes closed for a moment as Oliver put his other hand under her skirt and tore the flimsy panties from her body.</p><p>Reactively her body startled and her eyes flung open and wide, despite every moment of this being expected and staged.</p><p>It was a show.<br/>
<em>He was one of them.</em></p><p>“Bend over,” Oliver instructed.  It was a level of cruelty that José appeared to enjoy as he moved to the edge of his seat in his lust for depravity.<br/>
Felicity struggled in Oliver’s grip, but he held her tightly and even if she had been genuinely trying, she doubted she could escape him.<br/>
“Let me be on top,” she begged quietly.  Lifting her body up against him before she kissed his lips, it was unaffectionate and diplomatic, a promise that she would behave.  “Let me put on a show, please baby,” she pleaded.<br/>
A smirk lifted up the ends of Oliver’s mouth.  “Will it be a good show?”<br/>
She nodded with wide eyes and pouted lips.</p><p>Oliver sat down and patted his lap.</p><p>Felicity tucked her long skirt behind her as she knelt down between Oliver’s legs, sitting up as high as she could.  She reached over his lap and unzipped his pants, peeling open each side delicately.  As she held tightly onto his thigh with one hand, her other slipped below the waistband of his underwear and coaxed his cock with slow, even strokes.</p><p>As his shaft began to harden, she slipped it out from his underwear and gripped it tightly as she made her fluid strokes quicker.  She wet her lips before she leaned down and took the tip of his cock between them.  Running her thumb over the vein on the underside of his length, she took him a little deeper under his tip grazed the roof of her mouth.  She felt his hands combing through her hair and his thumbs press into the tiny creases in her hollowed cheeks when she sucked inwards.</p><p>She worked him slowly, not enough to get him near climax, but enough that his cock grew rigid and thick and she could taste the salty precum that dripped from his slit.  After she eased his cock from her mouth, she licked him from base to tip, lubricating his rod with her saliva.</p><p>She then stood and held the skirt of her dress open as she straddled his lap.  She looked over at their audience and smiled while she gripped Oliver’s cock between both her palms and worked him with three long pumps.</p><p>There were more eyes watching as Felicity sat a little higher on her knees and brushed the tip of Oliver’s cock through her folds, rocking into each pass she made.  She could feel the deviant beside her move a little closer and his hand move towards her shoulder, to touch her.  But, reactively, Oliver slid his own hand up her arm and rested it there, effectively blocking the suggestion.</p><p>“Look,” he smiled over at the man, “don’t touch.”<br/>
She leaned in and kissed Oliver’s jawline up towards his ear, slow and intimate, as she worked his head to her entrance.  With her lips on his throat, Felicity eased her body down onto his cock, feeling her body stretch and mould around him as he moaned in her ear.</p><p>Once he was seated to the hilt, Felicity arched her back and placed both her palms on the front of his shoulders, wrapping her fingers over the top.  She rode him slow and deliberate, grinding her hips as she pushed down and tipping her pelvis when she lifted up.</p><p>Oliver peeled one of the straps of her dress down her shoulder, exposing most of her breast before he leaned in and kissed it roughly.  She mewled, throwing her head back, as he marked her skin lightly with his teeth.</p><p>“How much?” she heard José ask Oliver, a sense of urgency in his voice.<br/>
“Not for sale,” Oliver answered as his hands anchored at Felicity’s waist.<br/>
Felicity kept riding, slowly, but her pace quickened when Oliver began to move her at the waist.<br/>
“But maybe a night,” Oliver added, “A little performance, in the right setting of course.”<br/>
José bought into it without even knowing.  “How about the Den, you both come as my guests, I’ll even buy you an extra?”</p><p>Oliver smiled as he tightened his grip, gradually building the speed in which he pumped her.  “Maybe we come, maybe you see her,” he teased.</p><p>The tempo accelerated even more until he was wildly driving his cock hard and fast into Felicity, catapulting himself towards his inevitable climax.  </p><p>She gasped as his deep, penetrating thrusts filled her, and it was mere seconds before she felt the warm explosion of his release coat her walls.  Almost instantly, he pulled her from his lap and she stood on trembling knees, with the feeling of his wet release between her thighs.</p><p>“Clean me up,” he purred, satisfied.<br/>
Felicity moved to use the hem of her skirt before he stopped her.  “With your mouth Megan.”</p><p>She nodded timidly before she got down on her knees.<br/>
“Of course,” she spoke softly before she leaned in and licked the sticky, salty residue from her shaft.</p><p>Their show had worked; they had their invitation.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. || light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>tw// panic/anxiety attack</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <strong>October 2012</strong> </em>
</p><p>Felicity always enjoyed this time of day, 2:05 pm to be accurate.  The autumn sun was warm as it perched high in the Starling clouds and people went about their busy lives with little to no thought about the woman sitting alone in a café on the waterfront in the middle of the afternoon.</p><p>The city virtually emptied of pedestrians, most of the business crowd had scuttled back to their offices.  The parents that might have ventured in to run errands or meet past colleagues for lunch, had dashed off, readying themselves to collect their children from school.</p><p>Felicity wasn’t much of a ‘people person’, but something was fascinating about watching those few stragglers move about, most often than not late for something.  It was the reason she always took a late lunch, opting also to stay on at work a little later.</p><p>A creature of habit, Felicity always took the same chair at the same table, in the same café.  It had enviably the best wi-fi signal and was afforded an exceptional view of the waterways.  Sometimes the air smelled even a little fresher in that particular spot.  It wasn’t that Felicity was overly <em>particular</em> about things, she just did the most logical.  She always had.</p><p>Life hadn’t always been fair or easy, so viewing things logically always seemed to help – especially when it came to understanding why she was estranged from her father and why the actions of a drunk driver had taken her mother from her a few years ago.  Logic, in many respects, was a wall around her emotions – or at least that was what a therapist told her once.  But she wasn’t rigid, or at the very least she didn’t consider herself rigid or exacting.  </p><p>In fact, she had been quite free and easy when her usual waitress was away and a young girl who introduced herself as Alena was waiting her table instead.</p><p>The girl seemed proficient enough, the food came hot and she popped over to check that Felicity was happy with her lunch; which she was.  Sure, the egg could have been a little softer in the yolk, but it didn’t really matter – <em>see, not rigid or exacting at all.</em></p><p>As 2:30 pm rolled around, Felicity sighed listless, knowing it was only a short walk across the street and she too would become a cubical zombie for the rest of the afternoon, and with the projects that seemed to be piling up on her desk – perhaps even into the evening.  At least it was quiet in the evenings.</p><p>She carefully erased her history on her tablet, scrubbed the trail on the wi-fi clean, and made a mental note to forward the offshore accounts of a dubious charity, which she’d uncovered, to the IRS as soon as she got home.  She had warned them, explicitly, twice, to stop funnelling donations for a children’s hospital and to make good on her ransom demand of the money they stole, plus interest, and a rather sizable donation above that, but the Founder of the company had blown her off, ignored her vigilantism, and balked at the suggestion she would ruin every single one of his companies and, inevitably, himself.</p><p>It was without doubt that he’d gone to great pains to ensure his personal liability was slim to none, but Felicity had found a thread that she’d pulled until his entire digital life had unravelled.  With what she would systematically release to government agencies, the media, and his close, personal friends, Felicity was in no doubt he wouldn’t so easily brush himself off.</p><p>However, as satisfying as it would be to ensure he couldn’t get a library card let alone another business loan, Felicity would have rather he’d done some good and repaid the syphoned money.  But, she wasn’t in the business of making idle threats, this time included.</p><p>“Here’s your bill,” Alena said, she wasn’t overly cheerful – which Felicity actually preferred, but she was kind enough. <br/>
Felicity added the gratuity and handed over her card, which Alena passed through the machine in her hand.</p><p>Felicity doubted anyone else would have noticed – eventually sure, but by then their details had already been sold and their accounts emptied, leaving their credit score in ruins.  But, Felicity wasn’t ‘<em>anyone else</em>’ and she certainly did notice.</p><p>Felicity found her phone and smiled as she thanked Alena for the service.  It was fairly impressive the way the young girl had set up the skimmer and how she’d covered her digital footprints if the hacks of the Starling Police Department came looking.  </p><p>Far from angry, Felicity found herself… impressed.</p><p>She left the café that afternoon with a smile on her face.</p><p>Later that evening when Alena had finished her shift and was checking the information she’d managed to skim, she found all her data wiped.  All that was left behind was a phone number and the note, <em>“put your skills to better use.”</em></p><p>Felicity wasn’t surprised when Alena called.<br/>
She wasn’t surprised either how adept the young girl was, or how quickly she learned, developed, and became a proficient hacktivist.</p><p>In fact, the only thing Felicity was surprised about was how their friendship grew and how she soon viewed Alena as not just a friend, or a comrade, but family.</p><p>They were family.<br/>
Sisters.<br/>
The only family they both had.</p><p>You fought for your family.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>No one cared.</em>
</p><p>A week went past and no one questioned where Carmen was.  The girls knew better than to mention her and the men seemed apathetic to her whereabouts.  The only person who appeared even the slightest bit frustrated during that week was Ángel himself.</p><p>Felicity hadn’t expected any different, but seeing first-hand how little Carmen mattered to anyone within the compound walls was a startling reminder of just how easily this world could snuff you from their record and no one would think twice about it.</p><p>During that same week, much of Oliver’s persona within the bedroom changed.  He wore more worry than she had seen before and even though he appeared less guarded, he kept his distance and his silence all the same.</p><p>They didn’t share any intimacies as they had while both playing a part, with Oliver opting to spend most nights sitting in the chair near the patio that faces the door, a revolver on the table beside him and a lit cigarette in his hand.</p><p>It was clear his soul was tired and that the levels of lies had taken their toll on him.  They spoke very little about it, even when they were alone and away from the compound.  She understood his reasons, and she knew there was much he didn’t share with her, but she believed it was another wall he’d built and another mask he wore to protect her – while simultaneously losing more of himself.</p><p>Outside of their bedroom, they played their part.  He was dominant and demanding, and she was compliant and willing.</p><p>But, those thoughts would have to wait as the night had arrived for their introduction to The Den.  It was unclear how Ángel felt about Oliver and <em>Megan</em> attending The Den, but the invitation was not his to rescind.  All the same, it was Ángel who sent Adriana to help Felicity get ready – to ensure she looked the expected part.</p><p>The dress she would wear was short, backless, and silver.  It was not nearly as elegant as the others she had worn over her time with the Cártel, but it was not her place to look elegant.  It was her place to be looked at.  Her blonde hair had been freshly dyed a vibrant honey colour the day before and it was drawn back in a tight ponytail to enhance her Anglo features.</p><p>Likewise, her makeup was chosen to draw attention to her pale complexion with a dark, smoky eye, while her lips were left nude but glossy.  Oliver had explained it the night before that for some, the paler the skin and the lighter the eyes, the more the girl would be worth.  There were other factors, of course, and it no doubt read like a perverted shopping list.</p><p>Felicity, <em>Megan</em>, was known as a ‘Porcelain’ – blonde hair, pale skin, blue eyes – and it was a look desired by many of the bidders.</p><p>“All done,” Adriana said softly as she handed Felicity a mirror.<br/>
Her makeup work was impeccable and she thanked Adriana warmly.  “You have an eye for makeup,” Felicity praised.<br/>
But, perhaps not used to hearing any genuine compliments, Adriana shook her head timidly.  “Not really, Carmen was always better,” she commented sadly.  It was clear that the skin under one eye was darker than the other, meaning she had been struck in the face recently.  But, Felicity knew if she enquired about it, Adriana would say nothing.  They never did.</p><p>“Have you ever been to The Den before?” she asked as she stood from the chair and smoothed down the short hem of her dress.<br/>
“A few times,” Adriana reluctantly answered, “but it will be different for you.”<br/>
“Why do you say that?”<br/>
“Oliver will take care of you, yes?” Adriana whispered as though the idea of it was so very foreign to her.<br/>
Felicity decided to push a little past the wall.  “And Ángel doesn’t take care of you?”<br/>
Adriana looked away as she sighed.  “Ángel only takes care of Ángel.”  After the words had left her mouth, her face immediately shifted to one of fear and regret.  “Please, don’t tell him I said that,” she begged.  The fear in her voice was very real and very haunting.  What these girls lived with every day, broken down until they were shells – empty husks – destroyed the very fabrics of their souls.<br/>
“Adriana I won’t,” Felicity promised as she took Adriana’s trembling hand.  “I promise.”<br/>
Adriana nodded softly, though Felicity was unsure if she truly believed her assurance.  After all, in this world, everyone lied.<br/>
“I go to entertain men, the ones that Ángel wants to do business with.  He thinks they’re more willing to agree when they have their dick in my mouth,” Adriana said candidly, though she kept her head bowed.  She felt ashamed, but powerless to stop it.  “For others it’s different, they want uncomfortable things, things I don’t like to do.”  She looked up, and Felicity could see the sadness in her eyes.  “That’s why it’ll be different, Oliver won’t let them do that stuff to you.”<br/>
“Did Carmen have to do those things too?” Felicity enquired – perhaps that’s where she was.<br/>
“No,” Adriana shook her head decisively.  “That’s what doesn’t make sense, he wouldn’t give her away.  Not Carmen.”<br/>
“What do you think happened to her then?”<br/>
Adriana smiled, innocent and wistful.  “Maybe he let her go home.”  They were either the words of a naïve person or one so broken that they needed to believe in a life beyond this one.<br/>
“Do you believe that?” Felicity asked.<br/>
Adriana’s head bowed again.  “We all tell ourselves the things we need to hear.”</p><p>She stepped back and offered one last smile.  “I should go, Ángel is expecting me,” she said demurely.</p><p>There needed to be a hope.  No matter how small it seemed.</p><p>A fact Felicity could relate to.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Oliver met Felicity in the foyer of the house, but he only spoke when they were alone in his car, travelling down the winding road that had become so familiar to her.</p><p>“You look beautiful,” he remarked.  It was affectionate but still distant, as he had been since the truth had come out.<br/>
She opened her mouth to thank him for the kind remark, but before she could, Oliver continued, “We can call this off any time.  We don’t have to do this.  <em>You</em> don’t have to do this.”<br/>
“I know,” she said quietly as her eyes tracked the half-moon in the sky.  “But, I’ve come this far, I feel like I need to.”<br/>
He lifted one hand from the steering wheel and placed it on her knee.  It was kind and considered, but instinctual, and he retracted it a moment later.<br/>
“If anything feels wrong tonight, we leave.  You need to trust me on that.”<br/>
She knew better than to argue, after all, Oliver had swum with the sharks much longer than she had.  </p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The Den.</p><p>The name itself inspired the imagination to dark places and hidden realms.  It evoked darkness, shadows, the very depths of a dark alley on a moonless night.  It conjured up all manner of fear in its name alone.  A lair.  A place prey went and never returned from.  A place to kill, to fight, to dominate.</p><p>A place where people didn’t hear you scream and the shadows swallowed you up.</p><p>That had been what Felicity had expected.</p><p>What she had found down the staircase, at the end of a narrow corridor of iron-grey walls, and through the heavy black doors, was something else altogether.</p><p>Instead of shadows, she found amber-hued chandeliers dripping with teardrop crystals.  Where she expected dankness, she found immaculately papered walls in an opulent pattern of twisted silver vines through midnight black.  Where fear should have been prevalent, she found drama.</p><p>Drapes of heavy black velvet with wispy shards of silver chiffon hanging alongside them, fell from the ceiling and were made to surround the curved leather booths that lined either side of the room.  The irony was not lost on Felicity that such heavy curtains afforded privacy in a world where voyeurism and hedonism reigned above such a notion as privacy.</p><p>She doubted the curtains were used to remain discrete for anything that went on in those booths, and that they had remained pulled back with their knotted silver cords from the moment they were installed.</p><p>If Felicity didn’t know what went on in this Den of Debauchery, she would have found it elegant.  And that was what made it all the more dangerous.</p><p>The first person to approach them was José.  There was a petite girl at his side, with auburn hair and distinctly Scandinavian features.  She had a pretty face, with large eyes and pouted lips.  Her breasts were small, almost prepubescent, and Felicity wondered if you scraped away the makeup and outfit, how young the girl would look.</p><p>“She doesn’t speak English or Spanish,” José remarked before he took a slow drag on his cigar.  The smell was ashy and thick, a musty odour unlike the cigars Oliver often smoked.  “I got her last week,” he boasted as if she was a new car or another, equally inanimate, possession.  “They’ve trained her already though.”</p><p>His smile was broad, his teeth pearly white but menacing.  There was nothing remarkably suave about the man, nothing to love, nothing to find the romanticised redemption in, for those foolish enough to think it possible.  He clapped his hands together abruptly, spilling soot from the cigar onto the floor.</p><p>The young woman dropped to her knees in front of Oliver.  Her head was bowed and her fingers fixated on the closure of his dark grey pants.  <br/>
“She will suck your dick tonight, call it a free sample,” José laughed, cold and empty.  His attention shifted to Felicity and while his hands never touched her, his eyes ate her up, slowly, demonically.  “And then we can discuss a business deal of our own,” he purred before he licked his dry lips.<br/>
“Tonight we are here only for the atmosphere,” Oliver said coolly as he batted the girl away.  His knuckles caught her chin, not hard, but enough to make her flinch and she scuttled backwards.<br/>
“Of course, of course,” José jested before he paused to smoke his cigar.  “But in the interests of such a deal happening, I would expect you to set her rules and I will honour them.”<br/>
Oliver nodded, albeit stiffly.  “We would discuss that, of course.”<br/>
Every word they spoke was transactional, devoid of humanity or emotion, despite the fact they were trading in the body of another person.<br/>
“And she’ll need to be verified,” José remarked.  He glanced only briefly at Felicity, no doubt to make her aware that her status depended on the man standing beside her, and she imagined that was why he conversed in English also, so she could hear it.  Her status was precarious, at best.<br/>
“Of course,” Oliver acknowledged before he linked his arm through Felicity’s.  “We’re going to order a drink.”<br/>
José stepped aside and his little object scurried along beside him.</p><p>As they walked away, Oliver’s hand moved down Felicity’s body until he reached her ass.  He slipped his hand under the tight fabric of the dress, skin on skin and exposing a little more of her to the room before he gave it a forceful squeeze.</p><p>She belonged to him.<br/>
His property.<br/>
It was a notice to anyone in the room who thought otherwise.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Alone in a booth with the chiffon draped down around them, they sat close, playing the part.  She lit his cigar and draped her hand over his lap.  She kissed his face and fetched him drinks.  She danced for him just inside the chiffon barrier when anyone’s eyes lingered too long at their booth.</p><p>And they watched, much of the night.</p><p>They watched as Ángel arrived late with Adriana in tow.  They watched as he leaned in towards the influential, whispering in their ears.  He moved about through the crowd, in his own element and a world of his own design for some time.  And then he disappeared into a room, leaving Adriana in the arms of another man.</p><p>Felicity shifted instinctively towards intervening, until Oliver held her back.<br/>
“You can’t save them all,” he whispered as he buried his face in her neck.  It was a lesson he had learned some time ago, but one that still weighed heavily on his mind.<br/>
Felicity tore her eyes away from the sight of a fat, white man walking a subservient Adriana towards an empty booth.  “Who is that man?” she asked as she climbed onto Oliver’s lap and lay her head on his shoulder.<br/>
Oliver looked through Felicity’s blonde curtain of hair, and what he saw should have surprised him.</p><p>“Ricky Moran.  He was a rival of Javier’s some time ago up in California.  I didn’t know he was back in town.  Let alone that we’d find him here.”<br/>
“They’re enemies?”<br/>
“Not exactly, but I don’t see Javier allowing any fraternising.”<br/>
“Then why would he be here, with Ángel?”<br/>
“I don’t know,” Oliver whispered.</p><p>“What José said earlier,” Felicity started, her lips brushing across Oliver’s neck as she spoke, “what did he mean ‘get verified’?”<br/>
Oliver held Felicity at the waist and gently tucked her towards one side of him.  He took a deep inhale on his cigar and spoke quietly into the cloud of smoke he exhaled.  “They evaluate the girls, take their measurements, inside and out.  They’ll use different implements to see how tight the girl is, front and back, and they note down any scars or marks she had on her body beforehand.”  He took another drag of the cigar, using the exhale as a literal smokescreen to hide his words from any outsiders.  “If whoever borrows the girl damages her, then he’ll have to pay for his damage.”<br/>
“And how much would this fine be?”<br/>
“It depends on the level of damage and whether the girl’s owner can still use her.”<br/>
Oliver looked at Felicity, he knew the way he spoke about it was almost mechanical, but it was part of his assignment, and ultimately a necessity for his current survival, to burry some of his humanity that would see this as debilitating and horrendous.  While it was most certainly the latter, Oliver couldn’t afford to succumb to the former.  A man without his wits was a dead man.</p><p>And while he didn’t much care for what would become of him once his job was done.  A dead man couldn’t bring down the Cártel de la Sangre.</p><p>“But, don’t worry,” he assured her softly, his hand to her face, shielding her subconsciously from the outside world.  “I won’t let it get that far.”</p><p>Her head bowed and a tear broke through her wall, burning a hot trail through her dark makeup.  She wasn’t as strong as she imagined she was.  She could feel the nausea poking at her stomach and the fear she had spent a year trying to bury came to the surface.</p><p>Oliver had been hardened to it by five years in the pit of the beast, and while Felicity sent herself down a path to become someone similar, there were cracks in her façade.  Cracks that were growing bigger and wider, into chasms.</p><p>She was falling apart at the seams she had tried to bolt shut.</p><p>Oliver caught the tear on the tip of his thumb and he could tell her breathing had shifted.  It was weak and uneven.  Her eyes were laden with tears and fear had broken through the surface.</p><p>You could only see so much.<br/>
You could only play in the shadows for so long before you became one. </p><p>“Felicity,” he whispered her name, trying to anchor her thoughts and keep her there, just there, in that seat, with him.  Her body was shaking and she was clammy to the touch.</p><p>You could only pretend to be someone else for so long.<br/>
At some point the split between who you are and who you pretend to be tears you apart.</p><p>“Sssh,” he whispered, taking her head with both his hands.  “It’s just me, you’re with me.”<br/>
Her throat tightened, the air becoming like knives down it as she gasped to fill her lungs.  She was having a panic attack.</p><p>He took her hand, she could see it, but it was as though she’d lost the ability to feel anything other than the debilitating pain in her chest.</p><p>As he moved from the booth, she tried to stand but she couldn’t.  Her legs were unsteady.  She couldn’t fight it.</p><p>You could only fight yourself for so long until you didn’t know which ‘you' it was that you were fighting.</p><p>He scooped her up into his arms and her eyes closed as she pressed her head into his chest.  She was faint with lack of oxygen and her body was wet with sweat.</p><p>He didn’t care who saw him.<br/>
His only thought, his only concern was for Felicity.</p><p>You could only see so much before it broke you.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The air outside wasn’t bitterly cold, but it burned Felicity’s lungs as she sucked it in short, hesitant gasps.  Thoughts were turning like a carousel in her mind, but words escaped her.  Oliver placed her gently in the passenger seat of his car and when he leaned across her to buckle her seatbelt, he felt the heat of her breath on his cheek.</p><p>He drove with purpose through the streets, balancing a careful eye on the road and another on Felicity, curled up in the seat beside him, shivering but hot to the touch.</p><p>He had known her break would be inevitable, even his own had been a few years ago.  At some point on the precipice of becoming the very monster you’re fighting, there is a shift – a fracture.  Our minds are not made to live such opposing lives and not suffer for it.</p><p>You cannot value life and yet be surrounded by death. <br/>
Eventually, it changes you.<br/>
No matter how strong your will is, or what you’re fighting for.</p><p>Inevitably, one side of the coin will win against the other.</p><p>He thought quickly, and he knew they couldn’t return to the compound like this.  The Plaza de Oro was near the waterfront and boasted panoramic views of the ocean as well as an opulence not afforded to most.  But, it was also a spot the Sangre would frequent and Oliver’s arrival there would not be seen as unusual, and little would be asked about the girl with him.</p><p>In the valet lane, they door opened for him and as cool as ice, Oliver stepped out.  He gestured the second valet away from Felicity’s door and opened it himself.  She stepped out, unsteady, but upright.  No doubt anyone that saw it would just assume she was drunk or high, either way, all knew better than to speak about it.</p><p>He threw the keys to the young valet who caught them.  He didn’t need a name or a ticket.  They knew exactly who he was.</p><p>Felicity braced much of her weight on Oliver and he kept her balance with a strong arm around her waist.  Her mouth was dry and her eyes stung, but she walked with him as best she could.  The foyer was shades of mahogany and gold in both the diamond tiles and the rich tapestry chairs.  Most of the surfaces were marbled ivory and gold, and the lights were kept fairly dim.</p><p>Oliver guided Felicity towards one of those tapestry chairs and she sat wordlessly as he’d put her.  What threads she had holding herself together in that lobby were fraying, but enough.</p><p>“Señor Queen, we were not expecting the Sangre tonight,” an older man with dark eyes and pale hair commented when Oliver stopped at the counter.<br/>
“Don't we have a permanent room?” Oliver asked sardonically as he lit his cigarette right in front of a <em>no smoking</em> sign.<br/>
“Of course, the Sangre have the finest room.  I’ll have it freshened up immediately,” he answered.  He was nervous, and he had every right to be.  Their presence, while not a surprise, usually brought trouble along with it.<br/>
“I don’t need fucking chocolates on pillows,” Oliver said sharply.  “I need a strong bed and somewhere for her to fucking clean up when I’m done.”</p><p>The key card slid across the desk with an apologetic smile.  “Room 502.”<br/>
“Take two bottles of champagne to my room in five minutes,” Oliver demanded, flaring his fingers to make five.  <br/>
“Yes Señor, I’ll have them delivered.”<br/>
“No,” Oliver said, smirking, “You bring them up, so I know they’re good.”  He took a large amount of money from his wallet and patted it onto the desk.  “Am I clear?”<br/>
“Yes Sir.”<br/>
He snubbed his cigarette out on the countertop and smiled before they left.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Once inside the room, Felicity opened her mouth to speak, but Oliver gestured with his finger that she ought not.  He pointed her to the bed and Felicity silently sat on the edge.  Her breathing was still shallow, but it seemed enough.  Oliver walked over to the window and pulled the drapes open as far as they could go before he walked with purpose to the TV which he turned on, setting the channel to one that played music videos.  It was loud enough that one would have to talk loudly to be heard.</p><p>He walked to the bed and leaned in close to Felicity, brushing his rough lips against her earlobe.  Much of her colour had returned to her face and her skin was cooler to the touch than it had been.</p><p>“The room is bugged, don’t say anything, just leave this to me,” he whispered.<br/>
She nodded before there was a loud knock on the door.</p><p>Oliver turned down the television, but it was still enough to be heard down the halls when he opened the door.</p><p>It was the desk clerk from before holding a bottle of expensive champagne in each hand.  Oliver checked his watch and smiled broadly.<br/>
“Cinco!” he cheered as he pulled out a sizable tip for the man and gestured for him to put the bottles on the table.</p><p>As he walked into the room, he kept his eyes low, careful not to look at Felicity, either in fear of retaliation from Oliver or because it was better he didn’t know too much.  Oliver turned the music down a second time, and it became more ambient in the background.</p><p>“Is there anything else Señor?” the man asked, appreciatively taking the sizeable tip from Oliver’s hands.<br/>
“This room has a nice view,” Oliver remarked as he stood in front of the naked window with his arms banded across his chest.<br/>
“Yes Sir, one of the finest we have.”<br/>
“<em>One</em> of the finest, not <em>the</em> finest?” Oliver argued.<br/>
The man appeared nervous as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.<br/>
“Señor Ángel picked the room himself.”<br/>
“I’m sure it’s a view he enjoys then, a fine choice.”<br/>
The man looked relieved and he started to move towards the door.  <br/>
“Do you think she’s pretty?” Oliver asked, stopping the man in his tracks.<br/>
He looked unsure how to answer, so Oliver asked a second time as he gestured towards Felicity.  “Do you think she’s pretty?  Don’t worry, you can answer honestly, I won’t hurt you,” Oliver jested as he took out another cigarette and lit it.<br/>
“She’s very pretty yes,” the man replied timidly.<br/>
“Do you know what I’m going to do to this very pretty girl in this room with <em>one</em> of the best views?” Oliver asked as he began to smoke.<br/>
“Whatever you please Señor.”<br/>
Oliver laughed from his belly.  “That’s the perfect fucking answer.  I’m going to fuck her,” he said, placing his arm over the man’s shoulder.  “I’m going to fuck her hard like she likes it until her cunt is raw and then she’s going to beg me to fuck her some more.  And I’m going to fuck her like that over by that window.  Do you know why?” Oliver asked, pausing to take another drag on his cigarette.<br/>
The man shook his head.<br/>
“Because there is nothing better than seeing a wet pussy in the moonlight, that’s fucking romantic right there.”  Oliver turned his attention to Felicity, “You want me to fuck you in the moonlight baby?”<br/>
She nodded as she stayed seated on the bed, still and quiet.<br/>
“She wants me to fuck her that way, you see.  They like it.”  Another puff of smoke.  “But I don’t like the view in this room, and fucking by the window needs a view you like.”<br/>
“I can see if we have another room.”<br/>
Oliver smiled as he smoked.  “You do that.”</p><p>They were moved in less than five minutes.</p><p>Oliver carefully checked the new room over for any listening devices, but found nothing in any of the usual spots.  <br/>
“I’m sorry about that, Ángel thinks we don’t know and it wouldn’t look great me booking into the hotel in another room, at least not without kicking up a bit of a fuss.”<br/>
Felicity nodded softly, <em>she understood.</em></p><p>“I’m sorry, about the club, I don’t know what came over me,” she said quietly as she walked over to the window.  The arms she coiled around her waist felt so unfamiliar as did the distorted reflection staring back at her.  “I’m okay now though, we should go back.”</p><p>He sighed softly, but in the silence of the room, Felicity still heard it.  <br/>
“You don’t need to be sorry Felicity, but we’re done here,” he stood beside her, looking at the tears falling down her face.  “It’s okay.”<br/>
She brushed the tears away angrily.  Angry at herself mostly.  “I need to find that book,” she looked at Oliver, the tears burning down her cheeks faster than she could push them away.  “I need to.”<br/>
“What you’ve done already is enough,” he assured her softly.  And then he made a promise.  “I’ll keep looking for Alena, but you need to stop, stop before this consumes and changes you.”<br/>
“It hasn’t changed you though.  I can do it, I can do better,” she pleaded.<br/>
His hands ached to touch her, to swam around her and hold her close.  As Megan he’d taken some of her light to sustain himself, to imagine a world where he wasn’t the person he needed to be, but he couldn’t do that anymore.  Darkness always enveloped light.  It always won in the end.</p><p>“It’s changed me more than I care to remember, if you lose yourself trying to find Alena then no one wins.  John can get you somewhere safe, somewhere you can help from a distance, but Felicity you can’t stay here.”  His words were soft and kind, and she could tell that he did not speak them without his own sadness.<br/>
“How do you do this?” she whispered, turning back to the world silently moving below them.  “How do you shut yourself off from it all, and why can’t I?”<br/>
“Because,” he breathed, keeping his eyes tethered to her, “you still have some good left in you.”<br/>
Felicity turned her body towards Oliver, stepping closer to bridge the distance between them.  “You don’t think you have any left in you?” she asked poignantly.<br/>
He knew his answer but saying it was still hard.  “No, I don’t.”<br/>
She reached her hand out and took his.  “Yes, you do.  You might not see it Oliver, but I do.  Maybe you’re bent and battered, and lost, but you’re not broken.  If your soul was as dark as you think it is, you wouldn’t care so much about my soul,” she offered with a small, genuine smile.</p><p>He lifted their hands and cupped her face gently.  His fingers were shaking and his eyes hid so much torment in their flecks of blue.</p><p>She leaned in, tipping her chin slightly as she brushed her lips against his.  The kiss was soft and tender, barely even a kiss to some, but to them – to them, it was everything they couldn’t say themselves.</p><p>“Felicity,” he whispered her name, thin and brittle as though it was tortured from his lips with what he couldn’t say.<br/>
“You’re still in there, aren’t you, the man you were?” she breathed, their faces so close that he felt every word she whispered brush against his lips.<br/>
“I don’t know,” he sighed, “he’s been gone so long.”<br/>
Felicity kissed him a second time and his lips folded around hers, kissing her back.<br/>
“Let me find him,” Felicity said softly as she brushed Oliver’s hairline with the tips of her fingers.  </p><p>The next kiss was more certain and passionate than the two that had come before.  Lips crashing together like the beginnings of a storm and when the waves parted, they were both breathless.</p><p>Felicity pressed her hand to his chest and even above his shirt, she could hear his heart beating rapidly below it.  The <em>Oliver</em> he’d kept hidden for five years was still in there, still a good man, still capable of being his own light.  She knew it.</p><p>“What if he’s not there anymore?” Oliver said, shaky and thin as he rested his hand on top of hers, “or he’s not who you think he is.”<br/>
She smiled faintly.  “Let me be the judge of that.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. || hijo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hijo = Son.</p><p>Hi guys, sorry about the unscheduled leave of absence, there was something that took a great deal of my time for lots of good reasons and I just needed to focus on that!</p><p>But, I'm back now and working on the last few chapters of this; my swan song.</p><p>So, buckle up... this will be a ride. Also 100,000 + hits... when the Fuck did that happen? 😲</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>Her lips brushed against his and she could feel each shuddering breath he took.  The air was still and warm around them with only the ambient sounds of the living city below them filling the silence.  The kiss was slow and delicate, gradually deepening as their lips stayed entangled.</p><p>He wanted to be found.<br/>
He wanted to pull down the walls that he'd built, but unsure what lay behind them.</p><p>For so long he believed Oliver of the past to be dead, with only husks of memory remaining.<br/>
<em>What would be left of him?  What had this world not stripped away and destroyed?</em></p><p>She turned in his arms and brushed the long sleek ponytail over her shoulders.  Glancing over the cusp of her shoulder, her eyes entreated Oliver, her words echoing the same.  “Could you unzip me?”</p><p>His hands were trembling as he reached for the zip.  The first tug was releasing, euphoric even, before he glided the zip down the rest of the way like a smooth coaster.  She guided each side off her shoulders and the dress pooled on the floor around her feet.</p><p>Felicity’s back was bare and Oliver traced her spine with a single digit and his eyes, both falling off at the rise of her rear.  Her arms were across her chest when she turned.  His hands floated above her waist, while his eyes watched her lips.</p><p>“What was your favourite colour?” she asked kindly, her voice soft and careful.<br/>
Oliver smiled, it was a simple question but one he hadn't thought about, let alone answered, in half a decade.<br/>
“Green,” he breathed, and as if a reward, Felicity dropped both her svelte arms to her sides, swaying them slightly by her hips as he mapped his eyes across her powdery chest.<br/>
He knew her breasts, he’d sucked and massaged and moulded them into his palms a dozen times before, but in the dim light of the hotel lamps and the white threads of moonlight, she looked different, <em>heavenly</em>, and it was like Oliver was seeing them for the first time.</p><p>Because maybe he was.<br/>
Maybe the eyes he was looking at her through were ones he thought lost to time, indifference, necessity, and survival.</p><p>She reached out and begun unbuttoning his shirt.  “What was your favourite place to visit?”<br/>
He smiled again, his eyes closing just a fraction as he searched for a memory he'd spent so long burying.  “My parents’ boat.  It didn’t really matter where we were sailing, it was just always somewhere where you could leave everything behind.  We’d sail down to Newport where they had a beach house.”<br/>
When his eyes opened his shirt was undone and her hands were on his chest, resting where she could feel his heart.<br/>
“Tell me about that house,” she whispered, her voice like a soothing balm to his weary soul.<br/>
“It was small, I liked that.  The house back home was too large,” Oliver recounted.  “We'd leave the patio doors open into the evening and you could stand out there and smell the ocean.  I love that smell,” he added, breathless and at peace.<br/>
He felt her lips gently kiss his sternum and he sighed, reactive and soft.  Her lips weaved up the side of his throat, like a delicate brush of a feather, until she reached his ear.  His eyes were closed and each breath he took was shallow and incomplete.</p><p>“Tell me what you’re afraid of,” she breathed into his ear.<br/>
“That I’ll die the villain I pretended to be,” he admitted, faint and brittle.<br/>
She kissed his cheek, pressing her body against his, closing in on his parted lips.<br/>
“You’re not a villain Oliver,” she spoke softly against his mouth.  When his eyes opened they were anchored to hers.  Still.  Silent.  <em>There</em>.</p><p>She took his hand, entwining their fingers, as she guided him to her waist.  She was warm, her skin incredibly soft, and for the first time, Oliver allowed himself to feel it.  Unguarded, vulnerable.  He kissed her, decadently slow, almost achingly so as he abandoned himself to it.</p><p>Closing his eyes briefly, Oliver brushed his fingertips through the ends of her silky hair, relishing the softness that floated through them like liquid.  She pulled her ponytail loose, letting her hair fall around her shoulders.  He tipped her head back with one hand, carefully studying her serene face and the way the moonlight caught her hair like a halo.</p><p>Another kiss, perhaps more fragile than the ones before, gentle but deepening before he pulled away leaving it tauntingly unfinished.  There was worry in his eyes, a torment that Felicity could see behind the rich sea of blue.  But, it softened as she led him to the bed, wordless.</p><p>She sat down, holding his body in front of her.  His body, carved and hard, was not new to her either, but that night it seemed softer – pliable – as she gently kissed his stomach.  Her hands loosened his belt and her palms guided his pants and underwear down his legs, while her nails gently grazed the backs of his thighs, making Oliver shiver.</p><p>As she coaxed his cock with her warm palm, Felicity used her other hand to guide his hand to her naked shoulders.  The feeling between them was electric and his hand tensed, squeezing her shoulder enough to elicit a sigh from between her swollen lips.</p><p>“Sorry,” he breathed, relaxing his grip.<br/>
As he moved to draw his hand back, Felicity touched it faintly and lowered it to her shoulder once again.  “Don’t be,” she whispered.  “I’m not afraid of you Oliver, I never have been.”<br/>
She leaned down and kissed the tip of his cock, tasting the salty arousal with her tongue before she parted her lips around him and eased his erection into her warm and delectably wet mouth.  A shaky breath shuddered from him, rasped and thin, as his thumb stroked over the hollow of Felicity’s cheek while she sucked him deeper.</p><p>Her hair draped over his fingers.  His nerves strained and tingled down the backs of his thighs.  He stood still, barely swaying on his feet, letting Felicity set the pace.  It was slow, with intricate swirls of her tongue across his head adding to the amazing sensation building in his core.  While her hand gripped his base tightly, her mouth was gentle and soft, inching him deeper until his head grazed against the roof of her mouth.</p><p>Each time she hollowed her cheeks, her mouth squeezed around him as she eased him out and in, over and over, keeping the same, achingly slow, but perfect, pace.  There was no rush, no necessity, just time.  Their time; relished and stolen.</p><p>Time was one thing Oliver had never counted on having the luxury of before, but as Felicity’s red lips stretched around his shaft and her beautifully-expressive eyes stayed entangled in his, he savoured it.</p><p>His shaft was wet and throbbing when Felicity cupped it gently in her hands.  Stroking him, where her mouth had left off, she coaxed him down onto the bed where they lay face to face.<br/>
“What do you miss?” she asked softly as she rolled her thumb over his damp tip.<br/>
“Winter with my family,” he breathed, his eyelids growing heavy.  “There isn’t much of a winter here,” he reminisced.  His lips sought her out, kissing her temples as his fingers drew faint lines down her body.  “The feeling of crisp morning snow between my hands, the sharp but refreshing bite of the wind, and the warm fire you could always go home to.”<br/>
She kissed him intensely, evoking a deep, pleasurable growl from his chest.</p><p>Their bodies writhed together, hands exploring and lips entwined, until Felicity shifted her weight and positioned herself on top, straddling the top of Oliver’s brawny thighs.  His cock was still hard, still pulsing like it sat on the edge of eruption, when she wrapped her dainty fingers around the base.  He breathed through parted lips, slow and steady, as she gently eased him inside her warmth.  His hands moved to her waist, resting on her hips as she sunk him deeper inside.  </p><p>Her body swelled around him and her head tipped back as she took every last inch until he was buried to the hilt inside her.  With her palms balanced on the mattress near Oliver’s shoulders, Felicity leaned down and, arching her back, she softly kissed his chest as she ground and rucked against him, building up in both speed and tempo.</p><p>The pleasure was intense and surging through Oliver’s body like he’d never experienced before, but he wanted one thing more.<br/>
“Look at me,” he begged, near-breathless.<br/>
Felicity raised her head and looked up the smooth, chiselled planes of Oliver’s chest until she caught his eyes gazing down at her.</p><p>“Mi paz,” he whispered as he stroked his fingers down her soft, concave stomach.  <em>My peace.</em><br/>
The rhythm they built was slow and steady; her body pushing down while his thrust up.  Her hands gripped his shoulders while his fingers stroked her legs and slit, until they were almost breathless.</p><p>Lifting a little higher off his cock, Felicity leaned down and kissed Oliver’s lips.  “I see you,” she breathed, her breath warm on his lips and her eyes never straying from his.  “I found you.”<br/>
“And?” he asked, raspy and thin.<br/>
“You’re not the villain in this story,” she assured him gently.</p><p>And, he believed her.</p><p>They made love that night, for as long as their bodies could, taking each other to the brink of satisfaction before finally giving over to it a little before dawn; their entwined bodies drenched in sweat and their hearts pounding.</p><p>They climaxed together, breathless and exhausted, wearing each other’s pleasure on their bodies and names on their lips.</p><p>Just as they were.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Oliver hated knowing the morning would come too soon.  He fought back sleep, wanting to memorize every precious moment and not waste a single one with his eyes closed.</p><p>It was still dark beyond the bare hotel windows.  Light from the streets below reflected.  A siren.  The passing traffic.  The world beginning to stir.</p><p>
  <em>Too soon.</em>
</p><p>The moon would leave soon and Oliver sighed at what would come following daybreak.  She hadn't fought him this time, but that wouldn't make her departure any easier.  Felicity would leave in 12 hours, with John's assurance that only he would know her whereabouts.  It was off the books.  He'd keep her safe.</p><p>There was no more to be said about it.  She would help from afar, but this world took too much.</p><p>She stirred in his arms, their bodies entangled and her head resting on his chest as he lay propped up against the cushioned headboard.  Exhaustion had taken her and she had fallen asleep to the pleasant and comforting sound of Oliver's heartbeat.  But, when Felicity woke slowly, her eyes wandered up to find Oliver still awake.</p><p>“Did you sleep?” she asked, her voice was thin and a little hoarse.<br/>
“I didn't want to,” Oliver answered honestly.  <br/>
He brushed her hair back from her face as she slowly sat up.<br/>
“Shower with me before dawn?”  Felicity pleaded, her hand on his cheek anchoring him there in that wonderful moment.<br/>
But, he couldn't hide the pained expression that stained his face.  She had brought Oliver back, shown him he wasn't the monster he believed he was, but he still wore torment behind his turbulent blue eyes.</p><p>“Felicity, I need to ask you something,” he said softly, a plea of sorts.<br/>
“Of course,” she promised him as her fingers mapped the fringes of his jaw.<br/>
“I need you to tell my parents that I loved them,” he sighed, a mixture of relief and despair.  “Could you do that, when this is all over, could you tell them that?”<br/>
“You think you'll die here?  No, Oliver is still there, they'll see it, just like I can,” she assured him gently as she placed her hand over his heart.<br/>
He held her hand to his chest and sighed.  Broken.  “I can’t.”<br/>
Those two words felt like a dagger tearing at his chest as he spoke them, and they carried so much more turmoil than any two words should.</p><p>She watched his face, watched as the hurt and the finality of those words twisted his expression.  She knew what he meant, what burden those words carried and the weight of them on his soul.<br/>
“You've never planned on leaving this alive, have you?” she asked quietly.<br/>
She was afraid of the answer, despite already knowing it.</p><p>“If the cartel goes down and I'm the only one alive, then my family is in danger.  There are places we can't reach, things I might not be able to protect them from.  My secrets have to die with me, it's the only way they're safe,” Oliver admitted.  <br/>
His mortality was not something new to Oliver, it was something he had lived with, and made his peace with, a long time ago.  He had always known that, one way or another, he would die as this Oliver – the disgraced, the traitor, the murderer – to anyone outside the very few who knew him as something else.  But, he had always hoped he could, as one last act of a good son, give his mother the assurance that he was not any of those things.<br/>
“John can't believe that this is right,” she enquired, her heart pounding beneath her chest.  <br/>
“Felicity,” her name still felt beautiful as he said it, “he knows as well as I do that I can't go back and I can't survive.”<br/>
She could see the torture in his eyes, she could see the way he needed peace.<br/>
Felicity held back her tears, and nodded her head softly.  “I'll tell them if you make me a promise,” she offered quietly.  He kissed her forehead before she continued.  “Promise me that if I can find a way where they stay safe and you live, that you'll take it.”<br/>
“Felicity,” he breathed.<br/>
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading in ways he couldn’t describe.  “Promise me?”<br/>
“And if you can’t?”  Oliver questioned.<br/>
Felicity swallowed back the sob in her throat.  “Then I'll know what you need to do and I won’t stand in your way.”<br/>
A smile lifted his lips and despite the solemnness of the moment, it was not out of place.  His hands cupped her face, holding it there for briefly so he could remember, before he leaned in and kissed her.  It was long and fond, but agonizingly final.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The steam encased them like a warm, weighted blanket, dappling their naked skin in the first veil of misty water.  His hand cascaded down her ribs like silk against silk until they rested at her hip.  The kiss became more frantic, more desperate, as the morning hurried to greet them and tear them apart.</p><p>Felicity stepped under the water first, her body a conduit for rivers and streams that followed the her elegant curves and flooded more haphazardly over Oliver's fingers.  They moved through the water, letting it pass between them, envelop them, cover them in its wonderful warmth.  When their lips finally parted, Oliver’s eyes were wide, almost wild.</p><p>The night had been slow and intimate, but the morning was hungry.</p><p>He turned her adoringly and she pressed her body against his, curving her back to nestle into his chest, exquisitely close.  He pressed his cock between the meeting of her buttocks.  The stone-grey shower tiles, a hint of reflective, had the light hitting them just right to show their sweeping shadows against the wall.  As she leaned her head into his shoulder, Felicity lathered the soap across her naked chest, teasing her breasts with slow, uneven circles as Oliver watched, mesmerized.</p><p>He thrust against her soapy rear before he turned her at the hips again and pressed her back against the cool tiles.  He knelt, stroking his palms greedily down her thighs before he turned his head so the water flowed near his lips but not into his mouth.  The first kiss he placed on her folds was wildly intoxicating, stopping a breath in Felicity’s throat.</p><p>The next breath she took came out like a strangled sigh as his tongue parted her folds and his lips enveloped her clit.  The warmth of his mouth and the tiny streams of water teasing her skin, made Felicity weak and her fists tightened as she arched her back against the wall.</p><p>Oliver grabbed at her ass, full and hungrily and pulled her hard against his mouth as he licked and sucked and devoured her.  Her head spinning, Felicity rutted up against him, moving her hips as his hands guided her, until she came eagerly and suddenly.  He tasted her with enthusiasm, letting her release cover his lips and tongue, before she pulled him up hastily.</p><p>He was already hard when she grabbed his cock, stroking it gingerly as his fingers coaxed her through the last waves of her orgasm and drove her quickly towards her second.  Balancing on her toes and with Oliver holding her other leg, Felicity threaded his rod into her.  They filled the steamy shower with deep, primal moans as her insatiably warm, tight body surrounded him.</p><p>His thrusts were deep, but hesitant, as he held himself back.<br/>
“It’s okay,” she panted, smiling wildly.  Encouraging.  “Harder.”<br/>
She kissed the tense cords of his throat as Oliver drove himself deeper and harder inside her; but still he held back.<br/>
Felicity wrapped one arm around the back of his neck as the other gripped the shower arm above her.  “I won’t break,” she urged, tipping her hips upwards to take him even deeper.<br/>
Kissing any part of her body his mouth could reach – her lips, her shoulders, her neck – Oliver drove his cock in further and faster, working his rhythm up until it was wild and uneven.</p><p>As Oliver neared the edge, he kissed her, bruising and deep before he spilled himself into her and she toppled over the same edge mere moments later.</p><p>They embraced, breathless and sated, but neither moved.</p><p>The morning had come too soon.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>When they returned to their room, dawn had broken and the room was bathing in the early, ambient light.  It would have been beautiful, a sky vivid with fresh tones of pink and orange on a bed of soft, ivory clouds.  But for them both, the morning even in all its splendour, meant their time was up.</p><p>“When is John coming?”  Felicity asked as the two of them watched the colours paint the sky.<br/>
Oliver spoke quietly.  “I’ll take you back to the compound after lunch.  There will be less people around.”  He leaned a little closer, inhaling the light fragrance of her hair.  <em>Just a few moments more.</em>  “You’ll need to gather what you need, but only what we can carry in one trip.”<br/>
But, she wondered.  “Wouldn’t it be better to leave at night?” <br/>
“The less suspicious it appears, the better,” Oliver said softly under his breath.  He hated ruining these last moments with talk of deception and more lies.<br/>
“What will you tell them?”  <br/>
Oliver sighed, wistful and considered.  “Whatever they need to hear.  Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.”<br/>
Felicity looked up and smiled.  “I’m more worried whether you will be.”<br/>
“They have no reason to give you a second thought,” he replied.  It sounded callous, but in this case their coldness would be beneficial; as long as <em>Oliver</em> didn’t care where Megan was, they wouldn’t either.  <br/>
“So we have a few more hours?”  Felicity asked as she wrapped her arms around his waist.<br/>
He leaned in and kissed her forehead gently.  “A few.”<br/>
Felicity gently cupped his face and smiled.  “So you should sleep.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Oliver awoke a few hours later to the sound of his phone vibrating on the bedside table beside him.  Felicity was asleep but stirring on his chest and the clock nearby read 9:58 a.m.  It had been well over 5 years since Oliver had felt the surrender of a peaceful sleep.</p><p>“What is it?” she asked as she rolled her fingers down his naked chest.  There was still a delicious ache between her legs despite the hours that had passed. <br/>
Oliver looked over to his phone, briefly reading the message to himself.  “It's Maxi, he's in town.  He says he wants to meet up before he leaves.  For brunch.”<br/>
The last words Oliver spoke whimsically, as if he doesn’t quite understand them himself.<br/>
Felicity glanced over at her dress slung over the back of an armchair before she looked at Oliver and smiled.  “I think we might be a tad overdressed for brunch.”<br/>
Oliver set his phone down and pulled Felicity into an embrace.  “There is an overnight bag in the back of my car with a change of clothes.  I’ll go get it in a moment.”<br/>
“I think me wearing your clothes would look even stranger than this dress at brunch,” she effused, with a soft and engaging laugh.<br/>
“Good thing I packed clothes for you as well then isn’t it?”  </p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p><br/>
It was not quite the afternoon, but the Mexican sun was already startling.  There was barely any breeze and the air was dry and dusty as cars and people moved about the busy streets.  Felicity fanned her face as they walked the pavement, enjoying what precious time they had left.  He held her hand and she would give his an affectionate squeeze.  Dressed in shorts and a lose pale blue button-down, Oliver looked like a tourist, simply admiring the sunny day with his girlfriend by his side.  Her clothes were equally as casual, tan shorts and a coral tee that hung loose over one shoulder.</p><p>But, despite their appearances, they knew better than to believe many of the eyes that saw they didn't know exactly who Oliver was behind his aviators.  Anonymity was not a luxury blood money could purchase.</p><p>The cafe Maxi had chosen was situated near the water on a tourist hotspot.  It was quaint, with blue and white striped sun umbrellas and a few scattered tables out front.  It was not busy, but a handful patrons sat inside out of the heat while those that braved it sat on wicker chairs with early cocktails in their hands.</p><p>One such patron was Maxi.  He stood when Oliver and Felicity approached and his beaming smile greeted them before his words did.  He looked freshly showered with damp hair and a slight glisten across his forehead.  His skin was tanned olive and his hair was a little shorter than Felicity remembered it, but it still swished when he combed his fingers through it.  He was wearing tailored fawn-coloured pants and a crisp salmon hued shirt that sat open to the third button from the top.  Necklaces dropped down the smooth slopes of his chest and he wore his usual chunky bracelet and designer watch on each wrist respectively.</p><p>As they approached, Rosa came out from inside to greet them also.  She looked just as relaxed as Maxi and her hair looked just as damp.  The long floral dress she wore over a pair of white togs billowed quite beautifully as she walked, making her sun-kissed skin looked radiant.  Her hair was lighter and pulled back, but there was no mistaking either of them.</p><p>“Oliver, Megan,” Maxi enthused as they stopped at his table.  He embraced Oliver first before he politely kissed each of Felicity's cheeks.  “Come, come, sit.”<br/>
“You look good,” Oliver said as the four took their seats.<br/>
Maxi was brimming.  “I feel good.  We swim, we eat, we sun,” he laughed as the server delivered a round of fresh cocktails with a bright citrus aroma.<br/>
“Why are you back in town?”  Oliver asked.  It wasn’t exactly a safe environment for him – something they were all aware of.<br/>
Maxi put his arm around Rosa and tenderly kissed her cheek.  “We're flying out to Italy tomorrow.  I wanted to say goodbye first to you, to pap.”<br/>
Oliver nodded as Maxi paused to take a drink.  His smile dropped from his face, replaced with a small sadness.  “How is he?”  Maxi enquired.<br/>
Oliver placed a brotherly pat on Maxi’s shoulder.  “The same.”<br/>
Maxi laughed quietly.  “Rigid bastard.”  He lifted his drink and both he and Oliver cheered to the comment.  “You know what I wish he would do?”  Maxi asked rhetorically.  “I wish he would leave with Selene.  I like her.  She’s a good woman for him.”<br/>
Oliver smiled.  “And what is a ‘good woman’ Maxi?”<br/>
“Ah!  You know,” Maxi enthused.  “A good woman is strong, but kind.”  As he spoke, he gestured with his slender index finger while a smile brightened his face.  “A good woman is loyal and beautiful and makes you want to be a better person just to earn her love.  That is a good woman.”<br/>
“A sentimentalist,” Oliver teased, “who could have imagined you becoming one?”<br/>
Maxi blew off Oliver’s jest with a breathy laugh and a trademark wink of his brilliantly-bright eyes.  They were alive, dancing wickedly with joy.  It seemed so foreign to Felicity; it had been so long since she had seen something that resembled true joy.  Was Maxi without his faults?  No.  His hands were still stained, directly or indirectly, but perhaps this was where his redemption started.<br/>
“You marry a good woman,” Maxi added, turning to smile at Rosa.  “You should know, Oliver, you have found one.”<br/>
Oliver raised his glass and smiled coyly.  “To good women.”</p><p>The next sound was unexpected and loud.<br/>
It shattered the jovial atmosphere in the most violent way imaginable.<br/>
It was seconds before any of the four at the table realised what was happening.  By then, a barrage of bullets had rained down on them.  The scene was chaos.</p><p>Screams clashed with the brutal sounds of shattering glass.<br/>
The air grew thick with smoke and debris.</p><p>Felicity felt the concrete floor slap hard against her cheek and knock the air from her lungs.  She saw feet and mayhem all around as she struggled to move.  Her instincts wanted her to move, to stand up, to flee, but something heavy trapped her there.  She gasped.  Fighting to fill her lungs.</p><p>The air was rancid with gunpowder and she could taste the smell of burnt flesh.  Rosa was beside her, panic charred into her eyes.  She was shaking, cowering beneath the table.  Her once angelic dress was stained with dirt and blood from a gash on her arm.  Felicity struggled to inch closer to her, reaching out her fingertips as much as she could strain them.</p><p>“Stay down,” Oliver said roughly into her ear.<br/>
It was then she realised the weight pushing her into the ground was Oliver shielding her from the hail of bullets that ripped apart the small eatery.<br/>
“Felicity, stay down!” he ordered.  Sharp.<br/>
She nodded as much as she could before she felt the weight lift off her.</p><p>Oliver tipped over a nearby table, using it for cover before he took his own blind shots towards where the attack was coming from.  Looking behind, he watched Felicity move quickly towards Rosa, protected as best as they could be by another upturned table and a small metal divider that separated this café from the one next to it.</p><p>He took another shot, hitting one of the men standing beside a pale blue van.  But, still the shots came.  His next bullet tore through the arm of a shooter inside the van, sending a halo of uncontrolled bullets upwards towards the sky.  Another shot pierced the upper thigh of another man in camouflage.  He fell to the ground in panicked screams as another man dragged him into the van.  Oliver took the shot, getting the man in the spine.  He dropped suddenly as two other men scrambled to regroup.</p><p>“Maxi!”  Rosa screamed.</p><p>Oliver turned around to see Maxi coughing blood as he sat hunched against a divider with his bloodied hands clasped to his chest.  Oliver went to move, but the gunfire had him pinned down and there was no way he could make the distance.</p><p>But, Felicity could.<br/>
She looked across at Maxi sitting only a few feet away.  She could make that gap.</p><p>Oliver looked at her, his brow pinched and his eyes tightly focused.  He shook his head just enough for her to see, but he could tell it didn’t matter to her – she was going to try.  He checked his magazine and took a deep, unsettled breath before he nodded to Felicity.</p><p>They both knew what that meant.</p><p>He raised his hand with three digits pointing towards the sky before he lowered them one by one.  On the last, he stood up and opened fire on the van, drawing their shots towards him.</p><p>Felicity skidded across the concrete floor, her knees ripped and her stomach in her throat.  Bullets bit at the floor beside her, but she made it to Maxi virtually unscathed.  She kicked another tablet over and pulled the divider closer to barricade her and Maxi.</p><p>He was pale, his hands drenched in his own blood and his shirt, once a light salmon hue was now stained crimson.  He moved his hand towards his hip and Felicity saw the gun sitting beside him.  She slid it across the ground to Oliver who picked it up and opened fire using both weapons.  He caught two more of the six men, dropping them instantly.</p><p>Felicity turned her attention back to Maxi as she shrugged the thin cardigan off her shoulders and bundled it up.  There was more than one wound on his chest and wherever she pressed, it didn’t stop the bleeding.  Maxi took her hand with his own, it was wet with blood but cold to the touch.  He trembled as he tried to speak.</p><p>“Sssh, it’s okay,” she soothed him as he slumped a little further down onto the ground.  <br/>
His grip tightened around her wrist and his soft smile drew her closer.<br/>
“Are you a good woman?” he whispered, his voice brittle and wet as blood pooled in his throat.<br/>
“Sssh, don’t speak,” she begged him as she continued to apply pressure.<br/>
But, there was nothing to be done and they both knew it.</p><p>The sound of screeching tires made Felicity look up and it was only then she realised the storm of bullets had stopped and everything fell silent.  So silent she could hear her own breath and the soft gurgle Maxi made beside her.</p><p>Oliver dropped beside them.  “Call an ambulance.” <br/>
Even though he knew.<br/>
He could see.</p><p>Maxi began convulsing as he moved his hand from Felicity’s wrist to Oliver’s.<br/>
“Stay with me Maxi,” Oliver begged, his own voice cracking around the edges.<br/>
But he knew.<br/>
They all did.<br/>
“Tell mama that I am sorry,” Maxi stammered, his fingers like a vice around Oliver’s wrist.  <br/>
Oliver scooped up Maxi’s head, his forearm holding him up off the cold ground.  “Maxi, you can tell her yourself.”</p><p><em>But they knew. </em><br/>
“Tell Pap, that I love him,” Maxi pleaded.  A gasp as he tried to sit up.  “Don’t you let him die for this Oliver, don’t you let him.”<br/>
“Maxi!” Oliver called out, pressing his head to the young man’s forehead.  “You don’t go out like this.  Not like this.”<br/>
Maxi’s body trembled in Oliver’s arms, cold and restless.<br/>
He sought peace in his final moments.<br/>
<em>They knew.</em></p><p>“I’m sorry Oliver,” he whispered.  “I’m sorry for everything.”<br/>
His eyes grew heavy, slowly closing as blood trickled from his nose.<br/>
He opened his mouth to try and speak more, but only a shallow breath came out.<br/>
“Stay with me Maxi,” Oliver pleaded.<br/>
He could hear the sirens in the distance.  Closing in.<br/>
But.  They knew.</p><p>Maxi smiled, trembling and faint as he tapped Oliver’s wrist.  “Good woman,” he whispered, his words barely heard.</p><p>His last breath was gasped and incomplete.</p><p>
  <em>Too soon.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. || calm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p>Oliver held the butt of his gun against the man’s forehead.  The arid stench of blood and sweat tasted salty on his breath as he inhaled deeply.  His hands were caked in blood, not his own.  His blue eyes were heavy with guilt and entangled in shadows.  Maxi was dead.</p>
<p>“Who sent you?” Oliver demanded, pressing the gun hard enough that the warm tip burned against the man’s skin.<br/>He was bleeding out from a bullet wound to his torso, making him spasm on the pavement.  But his brown eyes were soaked in hatred and he wore a twisted smile on his thin lips.<br/>Oliver repeated his question, barking out the demand in sharp Spanish.  The man understood, but his smile remained tight and unwavering.</p>
<p>The next shot Oliver fired went through the man’s kneecap.  The sudden, excruciating pain made him scream out in agony before Oliver put his boot down on the man’s chest and pressed the gun back against his forehead.<br/>“Who the fuck sent you?” he screamed as sirens wailed in the background.<br/>They were close. <br/>“A war is coming,” the man spat, his English broken and his breath ragged.  “You’ll die along with Capos.”</p>
<p>The next bullet tore through the man’s skull and lodged in the concrete beneath his head.  It was done.  Oliver holstered his weapon and stood up to survey the aftermath as the street flooded with <em>Policia</em>.  Along with Maxi and the three men Oliver shot down, there were four more bodies, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of something that destroyed their City and now took their lives.</p>
<p>A woman wailed over the body of an older man as broken pieces of white crockery lay around his head like a halo.  A young server lay dead in the entrance, his pen still clutched in his pale hand.  Two more bodies, a young couple, lay inches from each other.  No one cried over them yet, but they would.  These streets ran like waterways with the tears of those lost to a war that was not theirs.</p>
<p>Oliver took Felicity’s hand, and Rosa along with them, and the three walked – unhindered – through the Police blockade.</p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>The car ride was tense and Oliver drove silent and stoic while Rosa cried in the backseat.  In those moments, Felicity saw the damage to her knees, and as the adrenalin slowed she could feel the sting from the torn and grazed skin.</p>
<p>“Do you need a hospital?” Oliver asked coolly.<br/>His tone wasn’t cold, it was absent; void.  He was trying to hold himself together.<br/>“No,” Felicity answered softly.  Her wounds would heal; she was one of the lucky ones.<br/>“Maxi is dead,” Rosa shrieked from the backseat.<br/>Violently Oliver pulled the car into the sidling and turned around sharply.  “Who knew you were in town?” he demanded.<br/>Rosa shook as she cried into her hands.<br/>“Who knew?!” Oliver raged.<br/>“Stop,” Felicity demanded and Oliver’s head turned sharply to her.  “Do you think yelling at her is going to help?”<br/>“Someone knew,” Oliver said darkly.<br/>“Rosa,” Felicity said calmly as she reached her hand into the backseat.  The younger woman took it, still trembling.  “Maxi shouldn’t have died, especially not like that.  When did you arrive back in Sinaloa?”<br/>Rose looked up, her face was spotted with blood and wet with tears.  “Last night, just after nine.”<br/>“Where did you stay?”<br/>She shook her head before she cried, “I don’t know, I don’t remember the name.”<br/>“Where was it?” <br/>She sniffed and her brow pinched as she tried to remember.  “By the beach.  Maxi said no one would know him there.”<br/>“Did he make any calls?”<br/>She shook her head again, but more adamantly than the last time.  “Not when I was with him.  He only sent the message to Oliver.”<br/>“When was he going to see Javier?” Oliver asked, his tone softer than it had been, but the bite remained.<br/>“Tonight, but he didn’t tell me where.”<br/>“How did he arrange it?”<br/>“I don’t know,” she whispered through the tears.</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>When Oliver walked into the compound, he was met with the pained face of Javier.  He already knew.  But he was searching for something else.</p>
<p>Not the truth.</p>
<p>But the truth stained Oliver's clothes.<br/>The truth tore at Oliver's face.<br/>The truth didn't need to be said.</p>
<p>“Capos, I am sorry.”<br/>Oliver dropped to his knees as a sign of both respect and loss.</p>
<p>Maxi was the best of them all.</p>
<p>The sob that came from Javier's throat was unmistakable agony.  Raw.  Broken.  He gripped a small rosary cross in his hand and, trembling he brought it to his lips.  His prayer was whispered, not in Spanish, but Italian.  A homage to the better half of Maxi's life.</p>
<p>He prayed for forgiveness.  For a safe journey.</p>
<p>Javier walked stoically towards Oliver.  He stumbled and Ángel moved quickly to aid him.  But the Capos pushed him away before he beckoned Oliver to stand.</p>
<p>His voice may have been fragile, but Javier’s resolve was not.  “Who did this?” <br/>“I don't know.  A pale blue van.  No plates.”  Oliver spoke in facts, and very little in assumptions – they were for Javier to make, should he wish.  “About six men.  Three are dead.  One spoke of a war coming.”<br/>A vagrant smile twisted Javier’s lips for only a moment.  Oliver’s words were not surprising.  “That is nothing new.  People always try.”<br/>But, Oliver continued.  “This was different.  They knew what they were doing and where he would be.”<br/>Oliver was right, the planning and the organisation meant that this was not a fortuitous act, or that like the innocent bystanders, that Maxi was simply caught in the crossfire.  The wounds he sustained were deliberate and targeted.</p>
<p>If Oliver was the target, they could have killed him at any other opportunity.  Killing Maxi was a call to war, one that would not be taken by mistake.  While Oliver spoke truth, and Javier knew it, he was consumed with something else.  He walked to Felicity, drawn by the blood on her hands.</p>
<p>He requested her hands and she offered them willingly.  When he rested them on his rough palms, she could feel him trembling beneath her.  He was staring at the blood of his son.  His Hijo.<br/>“Did he die well?” Javier asked, as he folded Felicity’s hands between his own.<br/>“His last thoughts were of you and his mother,” she answered, soft and kind.<br/>A sigh bled from Javier's lips.  “Will you tell me what he said?”<br/>“That he loved you, and that he didn't want this to kill you.”<br/>A small nod, barely perceivable.  “Thank you.”  Soft. Genuine.</p>
<p>He lifted Felicity’s hands towards his face, whispering the same prayer he had uttered before and then, releasing her hand, Javier turned to <em>el fortachón</em>, Juan.  “Take me to my son.”<br/>“Yes Javier,” the bodyguard replied.<br/>Javier took a deliberately deep inhale, his demeanour became rigid and his expression grew dark.<br/>“Then burn this city to the ground and find out who killed my son.”</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p><br/>Oliver watched the blood tarnish the water as it circled the plughole.  He knew it wouldn’t matter how many times he washed them; they would always be stained.  Death was not new, but he hadn’t felt any this deeply.</p>
<p>Maxi was not without his sins, but with him lay a chance at redemption.  A chance to believe that all of this might be worth it.  If a legacy stopped with Javier and his older sons, then maybe it would be enough for Oliver’s redemption too.</p>
<p>He washed his hands until they were raw, but he left the tap running.</p>
<p>“You can’t leave now,” he said quietly.<br/>Felicity was leaning against a wall, staring at the lines on her palms.  They were clean, but not really.  You prepare yourself for death – believe yourself able to set it aside.  Until you can’t.</p>
<p>
  <em>Until you realise you never could.</em>
</p>
<p>She nodded, small.  She understood.  Javier would be suspicious of everyone and having Megan suddenly vanish could possibly direct that suspicion towards Oliver.</p>
<p>“I’ll get you out as soon as I can, but for now I’m sorry.”  His words were slow, exhausted.<br/>She stood up and took his hands into her own.<br/>He shouldn’t have died like that.  He wasn’t perfect, not even close.  He was naïve and foolish and blinded to the world around him, but he didn’t deserve that death.  Not him.  Not Maxi.<br/>“What will Javier do?”<br/>Felicity’s question forced Oliver to look up, catching his stoic reflection in the mirror.  “Exactly what they knew he would, he’ll burn Sinaloa to the ground.”<br/>Whoever they was, was undetermined.  But the hit on Maxi was meant to cause Javier the most amount of distress.  It was not monetary or related to a deal gone bad – Maxi had no involvement in the running of Sangre any fundamental way.  <em>They</em> wanted a retaliation; <em>but to what end?</em></p>
<p>Felicity carefully dried Oliver’s hands, paying close attention to the creases of his knuckles and the edges of his nails, as she tried her best to clean them.  Her thumb grazed over the tattoos on the knuckles of his right hand, each one a digit.  From left to right they read 5354.  She had always wondered about them, like she had wondered about the rest of the artwork that coloured his body.  But that moment, these particular ones gave her pause.<br/>“Not alive, not dead,” he whispered, sensing her quiet curiosity.  “The numbers in Cantonese mean that one is neither alive, nor dead.”<br/>Felicity studied his hands carefully, they were large, strong, rough at the pads, but she knew their delicateness and the fragility with which he had touched her the night before.</p>
<p>Instinctively she pressed his knuckles to her lips, kissing them softly, <em>intimately</em>.  It was not love or lust that drove them in that moment.  It was something far greater – it was trust. </p>
<p>As his knuckles slipped from her hand, Oliver cupped Felicity’s face, carefully mapping every inch of her face.  “Forgive me,” he whispered, a soft serenity in his voice.<br/>But Felicity didn’t understand.  “For what?”<br/>“I can’t kiss you again, no matter how much I want to,” he breathed.  A sad sigh before he continued.  “Last night, this morning, I said goodbye to you.  I’m afraid that if I kiss you again, I won’t be able to do what I need to.”<br/>Her eyes looked away from him for just a moment.<br/>“Felicity.”  He whispered her name just to hear it.<br/>She inhaled sharply.  “You said my name, at the café, on the ground, you said Felicity.  Not Megan,” she remarked – only then realising the significance of her name.<br/>Oliver understood the problem too.  “Did Rosa hear?”<br/> “I don’t know.” Felicity looked at him with a pinched brow.  </p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>Felicity stood near the open window and the gentle, warm breeze as Rosa stood nearby with tears streaming down her olive cheeks and her eyes glancing between the view across the back garden and the closed door of the bedroom.</p>
<p>Felicity had never ventured inside Maxi’s room before.  It was much like Oliver’s in size, but the colours were fresher, <em>brighter</em>; a mix of warm beiges and cloudless-blue.  There were photos and paintings decorating all the walls.  There was a youthfulness about it, a levity in its brightness – <em>but it all seemed so hollow now.</em></p>
<p>“Javier says I can’t leave,” Rosa breathed, her voice was small and frail.  “He means to make me a prisoner in this god-forsaken place.”  Angrily, she brushed back tears from her cheeks.  “He thinks I had something to do with it.”<br/>“I’m sure he doesn’t.”  Felicity tried to console her, but they both knew the truth.<br/>“I loved him truly,” she sighed, letting the distant view take her.  “I know most people will say that it wasn’t love or they would think me stupid and naïve, but I did.  He loved me too.”<br/>“Do you remember anything else Rosa?  Anything that might have been said?”<br/>“No.  When they started shooting, Maxi pushed me under the table.  I don’t remember anything else, only seeing him get shot,” she sighed as she tore a hand through her cinnamon locks.<br/>“Did you hear anything?”<br/>Her answer came in broken English, crippled with tears.  “No, I’m sorry Megan, it’s all hazy.  I don’t remember anything else.”<br/>Felicity offered a reassuring smile, though it did little to dampen the tightness in the air.  “That’s all you need to tell Javier.”</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>Like the quiet before a storm, over the next few days the compound felt empty and eerily quiet.  Meetings were held behind locked doors and even quiet footsteps echoed through the halls.  While the air felt sombre there was also a charge in it that was like nothing Felicity could describe.  It was a feeling, an intuition.</p>
<p>The compound gates remained closed and no one came or went without Capos knowing about it.  Matías had moved Gabriela and Annika off the compound, and last Felicity heard they were staying in the same house as his wife and three young children.  It seemed implausible that any mother or wife would put up with such an insult, but – while Felicity had never met the woman – she doubted she had any say in the matter.  Ana and Michael had flown in from LA and had taken over the pool house where the two girls had lived.</p>
<p>Adriana remained, but they saw little of her as she stayed away from the main house.  No one mentioned Carmen.  </p>
<p>Oliver had asked Felicity to make sure <em>Megan</em> maintained some semblance of ‘normality’, and in the interests of doing that, she and Rosa had ventured outside in the midday sun.  As the initial shock had begun to wear off, Felicity needed to keep Rosa close in the event that she remembered something more; or in the event she knew more.</p>
<p>They decided to take an hour by the pool, which is where they found Ana sunning herself topless on a lounger with a cocktail in her hand.  She looked over the rim of her oversized sunglasses and beckoned both women closer.  <em>Of course</em> they obliged – she was, after all, Javier’s daughter.  Her olive skin glistened in the sun and her dark hair was pulled up into a high, messy ponytail.  </p>
<p>“You must be Megan, we haven’t actually met but my brother has told me a lot about you,” Ana remarked.  A smile sat on her red lips, coy and deliberate, as she beckoned Felicity to sit; a whim she once again obliged.<br/>“This is Rosa, Maxi’s –,” Felicity started.<br/>“I know who she is,” Ana cut her off.  While her words weren’t rude, they were short and without any pleasantry.  She smiled stiffly at Rosa, “You can go swim if you like, Megan and I have some talking to do.”<br/>Her words were brittle and cold, but the same rules didn’t apply in this world, so Rosa took it with little more than a fleeting smile before she left.<br/>“I’m sorry for your loss,” Felicity said softly as she placed her towel on the lounger beside Ana’s.<br/>Ana took a sip of her drink before she set it down on the wicker table between them.  “Maxi didn’t play the game the way he should have.”<br/>“What do you mean?” Felicity asked as she perched on the side of her lounger.<br/>Ana rolled her full lips before a smile picked up one end.  “Father would have given him all of this, all he had to do was ask.”<br/>“What about Matías and Ángel?”<br/>She laughed, and while in any other circumstance it might have seemed an uncouth time to be laughing, Felicity doubted there would be a fool alive that would tell Ana that.<br/>“My brother doesn’t need our father’s last name, he’s managed to make enough of his own.  As for my step brother, he’d have to be stupid to think father would ever leave his legacy to him.”<br/>She leaned over and pulled a bottle of sunscreen from her bag, which she set down beside her cocktail.</p>
<p>“I was surprised when I heard Oliver had taken a girlfriend,” she continued as her fingers grazed the underside of her breasts and walked slowly up her ribs.  “Before I married Michael, I offered myself to him.”<br/>She slipped her sunglasses off her face and looked directly at Felicity.  There was no mistaking that Javier’s only daughter was stunning.  “Does that worry you?” she asked bluntly.<br/>“It speaks to your good taste,” Felicity replied, mirroring Ana’s smile.<br/>Another bubbly laugh left the Cartel Princess’ mouth before she handed Felicity the bottle of sunscreen and pointed to her back.  “Could you?” </p>
<p>Felicity obliged, moving from her own seat to sit behind Ana, who continued talking.  “Don’t worry, I’m not caught up on him or anything. I was looking for someone who could rival me in the bedroom and outside it.  It helps that my father is fond of Oliver.”<br/>The cream glided over Ana’s smooth, slender back.  “Is he not fond of your husband?”<br/>An amused laughed.  “He puts up with him, but my husband’s position is precarious.”<br/>“That must be difficult.” <br/>“Actually,” Ana remarked, smiling, “I find it amusing.”</p>
<p>“All done,” Felicity said as she offered the sunscreen back to Ana.<br/>“Could you do the front too?” she asked sweetly as she turned and lay down.  But, when Felicity didn’t immediately respond she opened one eye and her smile swiftly tightened.  “Do my breasts offend you? I could find someone else if I needed to.”<br/>Her words were terse, making it abundantly clear that she was used to getting her own way.<br/>“Of course not,” Felicity replied as she pooled a small amount of sunscreen in her hands.  To keep Ana onside, would mean she could keep her talking.<br/>“Do you think someone in the Sangre killed Maxi?” It was a bold question Felicity asked and she expected some sort of knee jerk reaction or denial from Ana, but she just lay there, perfectly calm, both eyes closed.  <br/>“No,” she finally replied as Felicity’s ran her hands across Ana’s slim collarbone.  “Most of them are too lazy to do it themselves, it’s too messy.  But the orders probably came from someone in here.”<br/>“Why do you think that?”<br/>Ana peeked out through one eye and Felicity took the unspoken hint as she moved her hands down between Ana’s small, round breasts.<br/>Ana hummed with pleasure at the sensation as her head rested back and her eyes closed once more.  “Pride, jealousy, dissention.  Maxi wanted to leave, but you don’t just leave, that’s about their pride.”  Felicity moved her hands across the young woman’s torso, mapping the curves of her body.  Her skin was soft and supple but firmly toned around her svelte physique.</p>
<p>As a reward, Ana kept speaking.  “Jealously, because everyone knew who Javier loved the most out of the boys.  Which leads to the last, dissention.  Because, if you wanted to get to my father, going through Maxi would be your chance to do the most damage.”</p>
<p>Felicity smoothed out the last of the lotion and as she lifted her hands off Ana’s beautiful body, Ana took hold of her wrists.  It was gentle and Felicity could have easily struggled them free, but it was just tight enough that she knew she shouldn’t.</p>
<p>“You have wonderful hands Megan, does Oliver tell you that?” she asked, but she wasn’t looking for an answer.  “Beautiful slender fingers.  Graceful.”  She hummed as she spoke, breathy and shameless.  It was clear this was all a hedonistic game to Ana; whatever gave her pleasure is what she wanted.</p>
<p>She held Felicity’s hands, stroking her thumbs across the knuckles as she sat up a little further putting her body barely two inches from Felicity.  She wet her lips before she pushed up her sunglasses.  “If I asked you to take your swimsuit off and let me suck your breasts would you do it?”<br/>Her forward question was one she did want an answer to and she watched Felicity closely for the same.  “We could make a show of it, you and I.  What do you say Megan, would you like that?”<br/>Felicity smiled, sultry and warm.  “I’m Oliver’s, the choice would be his.”<br/>Ana laughed, as though wonderfully amused.  “That’s the right answer for a girlfriend.  Still if you had said yes, I would have made sure you weren’t punished for it.”</p>
<p>She released Felicity’s hands and lay back down, as though she had devoured all the pleasure she had wanted in that moment.  Ana’s sexuality was definitely a game to her.</p>
<p>“Tell me,” she started with her hands on her lap, “what would it cost to have you wear a strap on and fuck my husband while I watch?”<br/>“You want me to peg your husband?” <br/>Ana smirked.  “While I watch.  The meaner you are to him the better.  Then you and I could spend the rest of the night together, exploring and enjoying each other.  This would be a step up for you, a chance for you to become important, and Oliver too.  I could make you come Megan, you’d come for me wouldn’t you?”<br/>“I’m sure you could Ana, but –”<br/>“You’re Oliver’s,” Ana finished with a sighed.  “No matter, I’ll just have to ask him.”</p>
<p>She settled down into her chair and pulled her sunglasses back over her face; she was done talking.  But, she had said a lot.</p>
<p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p>
<p>The evening was brisk as Felicity and Oliver took a stroll around the perimeter.  It was different that night than it had been during other nights; with more patrols and the same unsteady energy in the air.  A storm was brewing.</p>
<p>Despite the chill in the air, they were in the middle of the pool, treading water and playing the role of lovers simply enjoying a few moments alone outside of their room.  They could speak quietly into each other’s ears without triggering any sort of suspicion and the pool’s lights cast most of their faces into shadows.</p>
<p>They were under no illusion that they were not being watched – in fact, it was clear with the unease, that every person in the compound was.  Felicity pressed her wet cheek against Oliver’s and, feeling the warmth of his breath down her neck, she listened to the soft words he whispered.<br/>“Has Rosa said anything more, about what she might have heard?”<br/>She kissed his neck, deliberate and slow, hiding her lips – and any movement they made – from the eyes near the edge of the pool.  “If she did, she still isn’t saying,” she breathed into his damp skin.<br/>“Do you believe her?”<br/>“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”  It was the truth.  Everyone lied.  Everyone had a reason to lie.  She took a breath, slow and concise, nudging her nose into his neck.  “But, I think so, yes.”</p>
<p>They tread water a little longer, embracing in synchronised touches that served a purpose.<br/>“Things have been quiet around here,” Felicity remarked.  Even with the air of tension that felt heavy in the atmosphere, she had expected something more divisive, something sudden and violent.  But, instead, they all teetered on the edge of something <em>unknown</em>.  Even Oliver could sense it.  <br/>“For now,” he whispered.  It was not her imagination.  “But, Maxi’s funeral is tomorrow.  I don’t know what will happen?”<br/>“Javier isn’t saying?”<br/>She heard Oliver sigh; he was uneasy with the swelling too.<br/>“He’s not saying much to anyone other than Nicolás.”<br/>“I met Ana today.”<br/>“Javier’s daughter?” Oliver asked rhetorically.  “She plays unhinged and slightly psychotic quite well.”<br/>“You think it’s an act?”<br/>As the eyes of some guys Oliver recognised as Ángel’s entourage lingered a little too long, Oliver glided Felicity further across the pool before he pressed her body against the edge and thrust up against her to simulate sex.<br/>“Everything she does is an act, she’s a lot cleverer than people give her credit for,” he remarked as his lips stayed tight against Felicity’s neck.<br/>“Do you think she might be involved?”<br/>It was a question Oliver himself had wondered, but he always came to the same conclusion.<br/>“She could be, but I don’t see where it would be to her advantage.  Javier gives her whatever she wants and she somehow manages to keep her hands clean of it all.”<br/>“She wanted to pay me to peg her husband and sleep with her afterwards.”<br/>That admission brought a smile to Oliver’s face as he rucked his body against Felicity.<br/>“I’m not even surprised.”<br/>“What about him? Michael?”<br/>“He doesn’t have it in him.  That isn’t to say he wouldn’t be someone’s pawn, but every contact he has is through Ana.  He wouldn’t take a shit without her knowing about it and she doesn’t win in this scenario.”<br/>Felicity slapped her palms against the wet stone slab and moaned loudly, which was enough to push the eyes away from them for a moment.<br/>“What do you think will happen tomorrow?” she asked, whispering as her chin sat against her chest.<br/>He didn’t know.<br/>“Whatever happens tomorrow, stay close and stay alert.” </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. || war</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>HAPPY NEW YEAR!!<br/>Thanks for your patience. It has been pretty hectic around here lately, so it's likely that updates will be fortnightly from here until the end (gasp!)</p><p>Xox</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Carmen didn’t speak much, and despite her being the only real human contact Alena had had in what seemed like decades, Alena wasn’t much for words either.  There was a resignation in the air, and it sat still and heavy like a weighted shackle around your waist that couldn’t be lifted.  It held you there, unable to move on, unable to fight… just unable.</p><p>Neither knew who they could trust, or what cost speaking to the other might demand.  But, as they sat on opposite sides of the small, damp cell, it was Carmen who finally broke the silence.</p><p>“What do they have you for?” she asked in stiff, broken words.  Her lip was cut and her chest was bruised, meaning every word she spoke carried a jab of pain along with it.  But, she was tired of being silent – in every way and meaning that word carried.</p><p>Alena looked up from her fingers, the corners of which she had picked away at until they'd bled.  “They want me to make something.  You?”<br/>
Her question was timid and her voice hoarse – it had been so long since she had actually needed to use it.<br/>
“Heard something I shouldn’t have,” Carmen replied.  “How long have you been here?”<br/>
Alena pinched her brow trying to remember exactly, but everything felt blurry.  It was as though her life had been cut into pieces; her life before back in Starling, her decision to open old wounds, and then this place, dark and unforgiving – empty. Consuming.</p><p>“I don’t know, months,” she whispered, unsure if her words were even true.  How could something as fundamentally rigid as time – 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year – now seem so fluid to Alena?  It was as though she knew nothing of time anymore, as though her mind was protecting her from knowing exactly how long it had been.<br/>
“Do you have family?” Carmen asked.<br/>
Alena shook her head.  In the traditional sense of the word, she didn’t.  There was only one person who she <em>untraditionally</em> considered family; Felicity.  But she kept her name to herself – there was no telling who you could trust.<br/>
“I have a sister, Emelda in Honduras and a nephew there too, Juan.  He must be seven now, I guess.”<br/>
“Why are you telling me this?” Alena asked.<br/>
Carmen touched her finger to her swollen eye.  “So you can tell them.  If you make it out of this and I don’t.  That’s what we do,” she answered calmly.  Her fate was sealed years before, so the idea of it carried very little emotion any more.  <em>You didn’t just leave.</em>  “So they don’t have to spend too long wondering where you are or if you’re coming home.”</p><p>“I’ll tell them,” Alena spoke softly.  Even though she knew her own odds were stacked against her and it might have seemed like a fickle promise, she meant it – as much as she could.</p><p>“You’re American?” Carmen enquired.  She shifted a little, but the pain made her wince and instead Alena came to her.<br/>
“Washington State,” Alena replied.<br/>
“Does it snow up there?”<br/>
“Sometimes.”<br/>
Carmen leaned her head back and signed softly.  “I’ve always wanted to see snow.”</p><p>They talked about frivolous things quietly for some time, about school and travel, about all the places they had once dreamed about going, about animals and movies, and their favourite foods.  Perhaps such a light conversation might have seemed so out of place in such dismal surroundings, but there was a level of peace about it, something that couldn’t completely be explained – but something they both craved all the same – a sense of normality.</p><p>But it was momentary, barely enough to be real, before the door flung open with such force that the gust of stale air it took with it slapped against Alena’s face, making her gasp.</p><p>Time moved in chaotic flashes; in a way that reminded Alena of the moment this harrowing experience had begun.  A bullet ricocheted off the wall behind Alena sending her scrambling towards the safety of the shadows across the room.  The air became metallic and bitterly cold as she made herself as small as she possibly could, pressing her back against the wall and wrapping her arms tightly around her knees.  She didn’t know if she was breathing, but she could hear the erratic sound of her heart thumping in her chest.</p><p>If she believed in a god, she might have prayed – but that belief had vanished a long time ago.</p><p>She knew the face of the man who held the gun.  He wore a smirk that might fool you into thinking him charming.  His features were striking, a strong jawline and full lips.  She had never heard his name though, not until Carmen said it.<br/>
“Angel,” she spat as she stood up.  She wouldn’t cower to him – not anymore.</p><p>In an instant he had her pinned to the wall with one hand while the other dragged the end of his revolver down her chest.<br/>
“Play nice baby,” he growled.  Sharp.  Insistent.  Cold.<br/>
She spat at him again, catching his cheek.  Calmly he wiped the back of his hand across it before he lifted the same hand and brought the gold and ivory revolver handle down against her face with such force that it snapped her head to the side and split the skin.</p><p>Alena moved faster than even she had anticipated, lunging for the man with a rage that fear couldn’t dampen.  If she was to die there, so be it.  But, her war cry made him laugh and before she could touch him, another man the size of a professional wrestler appeared, moving swiftly to catch Alena.  She fought in vain as he lifted her feet off the ground and his large forearm strangled the air from her lungs.<br/>
“Hold her there, make her watch,” Angel laughed callously.  He turned his attention back to Carmen who was holding an emotionless stare on her face.  “Would you cry for me baby, beg for your life?”</p><p>She said nothing as he put the gun between her thighs and moved it slowly up towards her apex.  “Promise me that you’ll be a good girl, that you’ll be mine,” he breathed, the hot air from his mouth scolding down her neck.  “Maybe we can fix this, soon it won’t matter what you heard.”</p><p>Carmen ground her back teeth together and stared down the monster that had already taken too much.  “I will never be yours.  I never was.  I will never love you.”</p><p>“You see,” a sharp, feminine voice stated abruptly from the shadows of the doorway.  Alena hadn’t even known she was there.  “She was never right for you son.”<br/>
She lifted her own gun and from three feet away she pulled the trigger and Carmen’s lifeless body slumped to the ground; eyes open, lips parted.</p><p>To Alena’s eyes the moment appeared surreal, imagined – false; until the blood from the wound pooled onto the concrete floor.  When she breathed, it shuddered and when the man released her she crumpled like a broken matchstick.</p><p>She couldn’t yell.<br/>
She couldn’t scream.<br/>
She couldn’t move.</p><p>“You have five days to finish what you’re here to do,” Angel said coldly as he turned.  His black shoes echoed on the concrete floor and when he stood above Alena all she could see was the faint spatter of blood near the toes.  “If you don’t, you’ll be <em>begging</em> for a death like hers.”</p><p>He leaned down to put his eyes level with Alena’s.  It was calculating and cruel, and what she saw was evil.  “I’ll find anyone you ever cared about and I’ll make them beg.”<br/>
Calmly he touched his finger to the spot on his shoe.  When he pulled it away, the pad was stained red.  “Do you understand Alena?”<br/>
She nodded, stiff and pained.<br/>
He leaned closer and gently kissed her forehead.  “Good girl.”</p><p>When he stood up, he never looked at either girl again and all three left the room; the larger man dragging Carmen’s lifeless body out behind him.</p><p>Only when she was near to passing out, did Alena finally take a breath.  It was incomplete and sharp, not nearly enough to fill her lungs.  The realisation dawned on her with the second breath she took; she wasn’t leaving this place and what she was busy building for them would ensure many more were sacrificed to the same fate.</p><p><em>Felicity</em> she said the name to herself, her lips moving around a name she hadn’t dared to say in so long.  She had been like a sister to her, and foolishly Alena had hoped maybe she might find her.  She wondered what she might do faced with the same decisions, and it didn’t take long for Alena to know the answer - <em>“put your skills to better use.”</em></p><p>Felicity wouldn’t finish the skeleton key.<br/>
She’d destroy them.</p><p>//</p><p>The morning was bleak and overcast, a day unlike any preceding the usually arid city.  Tension sat heavy in the air, pulsing like a gathering electrical storm; just waiting.  The dark clouds sat ominously low, threatening to break their banks and drench the small crowd that gathered around the cemetery plot.  The casket, polished maple with gold trimmings, sat empty as Maxi’s body made its way to Italy to be buried beside his mother’s family.  She had wept for the loss of another child, but she would not return to the place that took them both from her.  To have Maxi buried in Italy was the only mitigation his father could offer.</p><p>Those that gathered were dressed in dark clothes and sombre expressions, but rarely a tear was shed as death was nothing more than the expected end to each of their stories and was never far from anyone.  To those who didn’t survive in a world surrounded with death, it might seem cold and cruel – and it was – but so were they.  So was this all.</p><p>As the empty casket was lowered into the ground, the sound of Rosa weeping and the wind brushing through the shady trees was its only accompaniment.</p><p>There was no song.<br/>
No words.</p><p>He carried with him what few could ever attest to; silence.</p><p>//</p><p>The first sound the occupants of the house heard was that of glass shattering.  For a moment, no one moved, assumingly simply that it had been nothing more than the mistake of a child.  Those seconds they delayed would, ultimately, cost them dearly.</p><p>The room filled with a burning gas that stung their eyes and choked their throats.  The air was thick with it, like a stagnant cloud of acid.</p><p>Most collapsed onto the floor, clawing at their own eyes and throats reactively, trying to make sense of the chaos and confusion.  Children screamed, scared and in pain.  But their noise was soon drowned out by the whistle of bullets ripping through the air.</p><p>There was no way to count them, no direction that they didn’t hail from, and no escape.  It cut through flesh with absolute abandonment and without discrimination.  Those left still conscious felt the silence as the bullets stopped.  Only a few made sounds, soft and spluttered.  A faint cry.  A frail whimper.</p><p>But it was not the rest it appeared to be and the air, asphyxiating with dust and debris, soon grew orange as hazy flames engulfed it.</p><p>The war had begun.</p><p>//</p><p>After the funeral the sombre mood remained, following all in attendance back at the compound.   Those who spoke, spoke in quiet corners of the grand hall and at the centre of it all Javier sat, nursing a bottle of whisky and harbouring a dark expression.  He leaned forward on his chair, tapping his rings against the side of the crystal glass.</p><p>“Did you slaughter the DeElvagos?” Matías demanded as he stormed into the room and across the marbled floor to where his father sat.<br/>
Calmly Javier took a drink, sighing as the bite trickled down his throat.  “I had word they were involved,” he answered.  “So I took care of it.”  He never looked up and never flinched as his oldest son raged.<br/>
“By whom?” he demanded.<br/>
Another slow sip.  Deliberate.  “They killed your brother.”<br/>
Matías tore his hand through his hair and there was no mistaking the anger on his face.  The DeElvagos were one of his carefully curated syndicates for their insidious reach further south and in the blink of an eye, his father had ordered their decimation.<br/>
“Why would they? What would they gain?” Matías spat; they were useful but knew their place.</p><p>The way his father stayed seated, sipping back on his expensive drink and giving him barely a reaction made Matías’ anger grow even hotter. “Grief has addled your mind, it’s made you crazy, old man.”<br/>
Ana moved quickly towards her brother, threading her arm through his in an attempt to pull him back from what could potentially be a catastrophic mistake.  <br/>
“They aren’t even our rivals,” Matías added, his voice bitter with contempt.  <br/>
Javier finished his drink slowly before he stood up and the room fell silent; Felicity had never seen a man demand and command the attention of a room with such little effort.  Not like Javier.<br/>
“They murdered Maxi.  I murdered them.”  He looked coldly at his son.  “An eye for an eye.”<br/>
“No they didn’t!” Matías yelled.  “You did! The moment you brought him here.  <em>You</em> did when you let him prance around Sinaloa like the golden boy.  His death is on <em>your</em> hands.”<br/>
Ana pulled him roughly back, chastising him in whispered Spanish.<br/>
“He was better than you, he was better than all of you!” Javier bellowed before he smashed his glass into the floor.<br/>
But Matías wasn’t finished.  “Your war will destroy us all.  You are a foolish old man.”<br/>
“That’s enough,” Ana hissed as she tried to drag her brother away.</p><p>In the midst of the tense stalemate between father and son, the scream of a woman splintered the silence like a bayonet.  Most gathered moved immediately towards the foyer where the scream had come from, Oliver and Felicity included.</p><p>They found Rosa on the floor, holding her eye with Ángel standing above her, fisted hand raised and ready to strike.  Instinctively, Felicity made a move towards the girl, slipping through Oliver’s fingers before he could stop her.  She shadowed Rosa with her own body, putting her face ahead of Ángel’s balled fist. </p><p>“Get out of my way,” he hissed under his breath, but his hand never moved.<br/>
Before Oliver could intervene, Javier was there too, his chest puffed up and his eyes wide with rage.  “You struck your brother’s wife,” he boomed, his voice echoing like a clap of thunder around the opulent foyer.<br/>
“She was his whore, I have every right to take her as my own,” Ángel argued, belligerent and foolish.<br/>
Javier slapped the side of Ángel’s face with such force that the younger man’s head whipped to the side, where it stayed – shocked.<br/>
“You are dead to me,” Javier said coldly.  “If you weren’t my bastard child you’d already be dead.”<br/>
Javier reached out his hand to Rosa and she took it.  After he’d helped her to her feet, she moved away with Felicity.</p><p>“Get out,” Javier demanded.  His tone was calm but forceful, and it was clear he meant it.  “I want him out!” he added, his tone shifted to a more urgent one as he looked between Oliver and Jaco.  “Get him out!”</p><p>Gloria put herself between the patriarch and her son, nothing but venom in her words and expression.  “You can’t mean that,” she hissed.<br/>
“You can go with him, you wicked treacherous bitch,” Javier raged.</p><p>Oliver, in the five years he’d been associated with the Sangre, had never seen the Capos that blind with rage.  But, both Jaco and Oliver moved towards Ángel; following Javier’s orders.</p><p>“Don’t touch me,” Ángel spat before his glare turned, heated and treacherous, towards his father.  “I can see myself out.”</p><p>And he did.<br/>
With Gloria closely behind.</p><p>//</p><p>Silence continued to engulf the compound, making even the smallest footsteps from the careful staff echo through the large ceilings.  Those left behind dared not leave the sombre wake, but they sat away from each other, barely a word spoken – even a hushed one.</p><p>Javier was nursing the same drink for most of the evening.  When he stood, his ring clicked against the crystal glass and with each step an air thick with authority followed him.  For the first time, Felicity saw more than the charisma of a man, she saw the darkness in his focused eyes.</p><p>She could feel the hairs on her arms stand straight as he stopped ahead of her.  There were no words to describe the expression he wore, and that alone made it haunting.  His lips softened, perhaps with the faintest smile.<br/>
“Sit with me, tell me again what his last words were.”  There was a fractured pain in each word he spoke, and the commanding patriarch slumped down onto the edge of the table.  When their eyes met, Felicity saw sadness.  His eyes appeared human in their brokenness – and yet she knew what he was capable of. <br/>
“That he loved you and his mother,” she paused, reflective and solemn.  “And that he didn’t want this to destroy you.”<br/>
Javier’s eyes remained focused but distant.  “And will it?”<br/>
Felicity’s cheeks ached as she bit into them, stalling her response.  In the end, it was Javier who answered his own question.  “Perhaps it already has,” he whispered.  “I know my sins and the price that I will pay for them.  But they were my sins, not his.”</p><p>He swallowed down what was left in his drink then stood up and shifted his stare to Oliver.  “Take me to her, please.  I need to see her now.”<br/>
Oliver nodded without hesitating and he required no explanation.  “Of course.  Megan, wait for me upstairs.”<br/>
Javier’s hand brushed Felicity’s wrist, parental almost in its nature.<br/>
“Please, she should come,” he remarked to Oliver before turning once more to Felicity.  “You would like Selene, she is brilliant and beautiful.  Much more than any of my words do justice.”</p><p>//</p><p>Selene’s house sat at the end of a long gated drive.  The late hour provided a luminous moon and a echoing stillness as the car pulled to a stop outside.  The house itself was modern, but constructed with a tastefully controlled hand that didn’t overstep the line into gaudy.  It’s façade was mostly glass, framed with tall wooden beams.</p><p>A carefully curated garden with peddled beds and a lit pathway led the small, silent party to an impressively large oak door.  Javier didn’t need to knock for Selene to answer.  She was dressed in a flowing robe, cinched tightly at her svelte waist.  Her complexion was clean from the makeup she had worn to the funeral and her hair effortlessly clipped back, but her face was one of charisma and beauty, classically so.</p><p>Without words she invited them in, offering only Felicity a faint introductory smile.  <br/>
“You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders,” she said to Javier as she closed the door behind the three guests.</p><p>Which he did.</p><p>//</p><p>Alone, Felicity and Oliver stood in the sunken centre of the living room, a drink in hand, as Oliver kept his eyes trained on the two figures silhouetted in the patio outside.  The door was closed, shielding whatever words were spoken between the two, but their body language was one of distress and comfort.</p><p>“They’re monsters aren’t they, all of them?” Felicity whispered into the rim of her glass.  She’d barely touched her drink, and she didn’t let the golden liquid touch her lips that time either.<br/>
Oliver answered on a breath, a single word.  “Yes.”<br/>
<em>They were.  All of them.</em><br/>
No matter how hard you sought out the good, it could not cover over the inherent bad.  And yet, you could fool yourself into thinking perhaps, just maybe, it did.</p><p>The next words came out heavy from Felicity’s lips.  “So why do I feel pity for them, when I know they wouldn’t feel any for me?  The way I can’t see the line that was once so clear to me.”  She didn’t expect an answer, she wasn’t even sure there was one Oliver could give.  Perhaps the question was rhetorical, an attempt to find within herself what had changed.  But, no epiphany came.  “Monsters aren’t supposed to have names and faces, lives and loves.  How do you see all this and come back from it?”<br/>
That time she paused, and her eyes rose expectantly to Oliver.<br/>
“If I knew the answer to that, I would tell you,” he promised.  He had long ago asked himself the same question, and many more like it.  <em>How do you come back? How do you see colour in the world again when all you’ve known for so long is shadows and darkness?  How do you trust?  How do you live?</em><br/>
Her mind remained unsettled, fractured with the two faces she wore.  “The people he had executed, what of them?”<br/>
Perhaps she wanted to hear that they were evil, that the world sat better with them removed from it.  <em>Would that help? Would that ease the turmoil she felt with each breath?</em> – And, if it did, what would that say about her? Life is only worthy if the one living it is deemed so?  She had walked this line expecting villains, and she found plenty, but woven within them were ribbons of reasons.  <em>Did those reasons make their culpability less?</em></p><p>There was no answer.<br/>
There never would be.</p><p>Selene and Javier embraced, their bodies sunken into each other as though they both needed the other to complete them. Shadows entwined them, making it impossible to make out their separate forms.</p><p>Oliver didn't answer her question; he couldn’t.  He simply replied in the only words that formed in his head.  “Too many.”  There were <em>too many</em> deaths.  “He’s blinded by his rage and lost in his own grief.”</p><p>There was no time to say more as Javier opened the door and gestured Oliver out to join him.  Like ships passing in a silent night, Selene brushed past Javier to walk inside.  Their fingers touched at the tips, but fell away moments later.  She had been crying, tears still wetting the corners of her expressive eyes.</p><p>Felicity saw Selene’s sharp inhale when the door to the patio closed with an echoed click.  The dark-haired beauty poured herself a drink of cool water from a jug that had condensation beading down the etched glass, but left it sitting on the cabinet as she turned to look out towards the garden where Oliver and Javier were.</p><p>“You love him don’t you?” she asked softly.  Her voice was warm, but it sounded frail at the edges.<br/>
Felicity smiled, almost absently, as she answered, “Of course, don’t we all?”<br/>
Picking her glass up, but without taking a drink, Selene continued.  “That’s not what I mean.  What most have is a sense of pride, a love of what being with them means, but you have the eyes of a woman who tries to love what’s beneath all of that.  I should know, I see the same look every morning in the mirror.”  She drunk slowly, her body poised with eyes fixated on a vacant middle distance.  “Do you wonder how I could love such a man?”<br/>
Her question was almost silent, lost beneath the sigh that followed.<br/>
“Don’t worry, I won’t expect you to answer.” A small smile brightened her stunning features, softening her defined cheekbones.  “But, I ask myself that question more often than I should.”</p><p>Another drink to wet her parched lips.  “I still don’t know the answer.  Perhaps you do?”<br/>
This time, her enchanting brown eyes begged for an answer.  “Love isn’t always in our control,” Felicity answered, soft and delicate – choosing her words.<br/>
Selene agreed with a faint nod.  “Or in our best interests,” she added resolutely.  “Perhaps I’m naïve enough to believe he can change? That he could walk away from all of this, from what he’s created.  He grew up into the role, just like his sons after him, like their sons will.  Never knowing any different, any better.”<br/>
As she glanced down, her hand ghosted across her stomach; a gesture that said more than had meant to.<br/>
“You don’t believe you can change him?” Felicity asked.<br/>
“I used to once, sometimes I’m foolish or desperate enough to believe that I could.  Men like Javier are not our beasts to tame, no matter how much we love them.”  Selene set the half-empty glass down.  When she lifted her eyes they were wet with fresh tears and her lips quivered as she spoke.  “You love them until it hurts, until you bled with them, for them, but it’s still not enough.  It never will be.  They’ll always hurt themselves more than you can heal them.”</p><p>She walked a few steps towards the door, a heavy ache in her next exhale.  “Inside him is a boy, a child, that never knew any better than his father taught him.  I don’t mean to make excuses, I simply try to understand.”<br/>
“He loved Maxi?”  Felicity already believed she knew the answer, but she asked it all the same.<br/>
“I think in him he saw a glimmer of hope, a small part of good.”<br/>
“Then why bring him here to Sinaloa?”<br/>
Felicity bit her lip, fearing she had overstepped her place, but Selene merely smiled, faint and sad.  <br/>
“I know, funny isn’t it.  They find good, even their own, and they can’t help but destroy it.”</p><p>She turned to the right and walked slowly towards a wall decorated predominantly in a large piece of artwork.  The painting was emboldened in shades of yellow, earthly and brown to vivid and golden, as it depicted a couple embracing and blended into each other, their bodies entwined in elaborate beautiful robes decorated.  The masculine figure imbued dominance with bold, harsh blocks of grey and black adorning his cloak, but softened by spinning circles of bright floral motifs which graced the woman.  It was a moment that evoked intense sexual pleasure, as two lovers drawn in equal moments of bliss.  It spoke of passion and of love in each brush stroke.</p><p>“Do you see this painting?” Selene asked as she stopped ahead of it.  Her arms were crossed, but her shoulders were pulled towards it, as though aching for an embrace that never came from the canvas.<br/>
“It’s beautiful,” Felicity remarked.  It truly was.</p><p>With a finger paused near her lips, Selene sighed.  “The original is called <em>The Kiss</em> painted by Gustav Klimt in 1907.  It was once deemed pornographic despite the fact both are fully clothed. The painting hangs in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in Vienna.  It has always been one of my favourites, I could talk all day about it.”  It was clear her knowledge stemmed from both her job and her adoration for art itself.  “Javier painted this replica, changing the face to one that resembled mine.  Knowing that, do you see it any differently?”<br/>
“It’s still beautiful.”<br/>
Selene’s hand floated down towards her stomach as her gaze stayed anchored to the painting.</p><p>“Does he know?” Felicity wondered aloud as her eyes drifted to Selene’s stomach; she was pregnant.<br/>
Selene expelled a shuddered breath.  “You are more observant than most.”<br/>
Realising her mistake, Felicity quickly apologised.  “Forgive me for asking, it’s none of my business.”<br/>
But, the apology was unnecessary.  “He knows,” Selene admitted quietly.  “That’s why he’s asked me to leave.”<br/>
“And will you leave?”<br/>
The lightly perfumed air fell silent, an ominous sign of the storm brewing that would engulf them all.<br/>
She brushed back a tear that slid down her face, but left another to burn it’s bitter trail.  “I can’t stay and watch him die,” she whispered, turning away from the painting.  “This war will kill them all, in one way or another.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. || judas</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you all for you patience. I always find the last few chapters of a story hard to write, will it meet expectations? will it all come together? will it be what I wanted?</p><p>Given I intend this to be my last Olicity fic, that anxiety is off the charts. So, please bear with me as I prepare to write "the end" one last time.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p> </p><p>In a week, sides had been chosen and the sky was tainted orange with the flames that licked at it.  Javier, the Sangre, had made their point; <em>you touch me, I’ll destroy you</em>.  It was impossible to look away from as shots rang out in neighbourhoods and those who knew better stayed off the streets.<br/>
 <br/>
The air was thick with the foreboding and suffocating ash and no night was without wailing sirens.  As Felicity stood on Oliver’s balcony, she knew that night would be no different.  Her eyes were wet with tears and her throat tight with the unspoken.  Javier’s vengeance would destroy Sinaloa, and she felt powerless to stop it.</p><p>She shuddered at the sound of Oliver placing a gun on the table beside her, and even the small, delicate kiss on her bare shoulder was not enough to settle her rapid pulse.</p><p>Oliver lifted the sleeve of Felicity’s cardigan back up her shoulder before he brushed his finger under her chin, pulling her attention slowly towards him.  “I want you to carry this with you at all times,” he whispered.</p><p>She blinked down at the weapon through glazed eyes, but her trembling lips stayed silent.<br/>
“I need to know that you’ll use it,” he pleaded, his eyes awash with anguish.<br/>
Felicity said nothing as she turned her head back towards the city.  His hand gripped her wrist, pulling her back to him.<br/>
“Felicity, I need to know.”<br/>
“I won’t kill anyone,” she whispered.  As she blinked, the tears she’d been holding back streamed down her face like scorching rivers against her skin.<br/>
His jaw clenched.  “Do you think that they’ll show you any mercy?”<br/>
Her body was shaking as his hand moved to her sodden cheek.<br/>
“If you need to,” he paused, searching her eyes for an answer.<br/>
“Then how do I come back from it? How do I live with myself if I pull that trigger?”</p><p>He cupped her face, kissing her forehead with more desperation than he had before.  Her body was cold and small in his arms, fighting back the knowledge of what was to come.</p><p>Their foreheads rested against each other and their eyes were closed.  “You survive,” he breathed.<br/>
 </p><p>//</p><p><br/>
Adriana could feel her hands shaking as she walked quickly through the concrete hall.  The air was stale and humid, sticking to the old tears on her cheeks.  She could see Angel’s dark eyes glaring down at her and the way his lips twisted as he spoke.  She pressed the back of her hand to her nose, but it did little to block out the stench of death that followed her.  The sun had already risen and the morning was bright and blue, a far cry from the dimness her eyes were struggling to adjust to.</p><p>Vomit sat in her throat, bobbing with each hurried step she took.  There were noises to accompany her; the low hum of the failing air conditioner, the cough of the man accompanying her, and the clunk of the metal pipes of the house above, but none of them could drown out the sound of her racing heart which throbbed in her ear drums.</p><p>It had been a week since Javier had banished Angel, and while Adriana knew very little about what Angel was planning, she knew it wasn’t good.  The house was almost empty and what he’d left behind, he had tasked Adriana with cleaning up.</p><p>“This one,” the man ahead of her grunted when he stopped in front of a metal door.<br/>
Adriana kept her eyes low, but she could hear the sneered laugh he made as she sidled past him.  But, the barrel of his high-powered rifle poking into her ribs stopped her immediately.  “He said I could shoot you both if I needed to.”  He spoke with a menacing pull, and when Adriana looked up he was smiling, amused by the fear she couldn’t disguise.<br/>
He leaned closer and Adriana clamped down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from sobbing.<br/>
“The things I would do to you first though,” he hummed near her ear.</p><p>She pushed past him and fed the key into the lock, as his breath trickled warm and heavy down her neck.  The door opened and she closed it with a heavy thud behind her, pausing against it to catch her breath.</p><p>“Are you okay?” a voice asked from the corner of the dim room.</p><p>Adriana looked up, pulled from her own thoughts with wide eyes and gaped lips before she nodded quickly.  She set down the backpack she had carried with her and pulled out a clean pair of jeans and a black tee, holding them only as long as she needed to before she threw them towards the other figure in the room.<br/>
“What are these for?” Alena asked, her voice scratchy as she fought her dry throat.<br/>
“You’ll need to get changed,” she answered stiffly while she found the rest of the items; a pair of Converse sneakers, a baseball cap, a bottle of water, and a few pre-packaged snacks.<br/>
“What’s your name?” Alena asked as she held the bundled clothes in her arms.<br/>
“It doesn’t matter,” Adriana replied.<br/>
Alena stepped closer with two hesitant steps.  “My name is Alena.”<br/>
Adriana stood up sharply.  “I don’t care.  Get changed.”<br/>
“Why?”<br/>
“I’ll be back in an hour, be ready by then.”</p><p>Adriana walked towards the door, but knowing that the man was on the other side of it, she was reluctant to leave.<br/>
“Be ready for what?”<br/>
“We have to go.”<br/>
Alena took a step towards the other woman.  “Where are we going?”<br/>
“It doesn’t matter.  I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Adriana pleaded under her breath.</p><p>Alena scooped up the water bottle and smiled.  “Thank you for bringing me this.” Adriana shrugged softly, but didn’t speak.  “Most of the time they just bring me a glass of water and it’s always old or dirty.  So thank you,” Alena continued before she opened the water and took a drink.</p><p>With half the bottle gone, Alena stopped drinking.  “Is the guy outside the big one with the pitted cheeks?”  It didn’t matter that Adriana wasn’t replying.  “He always smells like dirt and lemon-scented furniture polish.”</p><p>A fragmented smile lifted Adriana’s mouth. </p><p>“I’m Alena, I can’t keep potted plants alive and phone company ads make me cry,” she remarked, her hand outstretched.<br/>
Adriana looked down at it before she shook her head.  “Stop it,” she whispered.<br/>
“My best friend is Felicity, I don’t know if I ever told her that, but she saved me once, she’s like my sister.  Do you have any sisters?” Alena spoke.  She was a person.  Not nameless or faceless.  Perhaps it was harder to kill someone with a name. <br/>
“Not anymore,” Adriana answered, her voice hollow and quiet.  </p><p>The memory still burned in her mind, it was not one she could ever forget.  They had been laughing, playing like children do.  The sun was high and warm in the afternoon sky and the air smelled like sweet flowers.  The swing was finally empty and the younger girl ran towards it, the two blue ribbons in her hair waving like tiny arms.  A few years older, but still a child herself, Adriana stopped to pull a stone out of her shoe.</p><p>Just a moment.<br/>
One moment.</p><p>She looked up and across the playground to the empty swing.<br/>
Not anymore.</p><p>“Tell me about her, please,” Alena encouraged, her calm voice sitting just barely above a whisper.</p><p>Adriana wiped back the tears that had sprung from her eyes.  “She was so smart, she would have made a difference in this world.” <br/>
“So can you,” Alena pleaded.<br/>
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” Adriana stuttered as she stepped back and shook her head.<br/>
“Please…”<br/>
“I’m sorry,” Adriana whispered. “I’m too broken to help anyone.”</p><p> <br/>
//</p><p>John Diggle was pacing.  It wasn’t often that he did it, and it was rarer still that he was doing it in front of subordinates in the safe house a few miles out of the Sinaloa city limits.  The sun had barely come up and already the temperature was soaring enough to have perspiration dotting his forehead and making his hands clammy as he paced with them clenched.<br/>
 <br/>
There was a saying in the outside world that ‘No news was good news’; it was a saying that didn’t translate when it came to the DEA – or any covert operation, he imagined.  It had been nearing 18 hours since he’d heard from Oliver and while that in itself was not unusual, with the instability of the situation Sinaloa faced, each hour that went by weighed heavily on his broad, but tired, shoulders.</p><p> He’d always reminded himself not to make friends in this business, and for 15 straight years, he’d succeeded.  He’s had colleagues – sure, even colleagues he would risk his neck for if the job called for it – but never friends.  That always felt like an intrusion into his real life, if a failed marriage and a child he only saw during the holidays could be called a “real life”.  But, with Oliver, something had changed.  He saw a rookie who, like him, believed that he could make a difference.  For the last five years, John had watched that kid from Starling with twin dimples slowly lose that hope until the man he now knew remained, broken and somewhat jaded.</p><p>All the same, he would see this through until the bitter end – a notion which sounded more like a premonition.  For all that doom and gloom of the past 5 years, the last few months had seen another shift.  The girl.</p><p> She had managed to do what John hadn’t; she’d given Oliver back some of his humanity, his hope.  To now know that all of that and all of what he and Oliver and the wider team had worked so hard to do for so long hung on the precipice of disaster was why John paced.</p><p> The phone rang sharply and John stopped in his tracks as one of the younger operatives answered.  John stood stoically, like a statute, on the other side of the room watching as the operative’s face contorted.  He couldn’t hear what was being said, not from the distance he’d created, but he could tell by the shallow bow of the man’s head that it wasn’t good news.</p><p><br/>
The instant the phone hit the cradle, John walked stiffly across the room.  “What’s the report?”<br/>
“They have intel that something is about to happen.”<br/>
John scoffed.  “Something is always about to happen.”<br/>
“Whatever it is Sir, they think it’s enough,” the young recruit remarked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.  He was nervous, John could tell.  He just didn’t know why.<br/>
“Enough for what?”<br/>
“They’re mobilising Sir.”<br/>
“Are you fucking kidding me? What is their intel?”<br/>
John could feel the vein on his forehead throbbing like a stampede.<br/>
“A coup Sir.  They don’t want to lose Javier or have the Sangre fracture.  They say they have enough.”</p><p>John ran his hand roughly over his cropped hair.  There was no sense arguing when they made the call to mobilise.  That order came from well above his pay grade and he wouldn’t have enough favours accumulated over a millennium to be invited into that room.  In any event, mobilising meant pulling Oliver out, at least the kid might have a chance at another life.</p><p>“Fine,” John grunted.  He knew Oliver would be pissed, not least of all because they hadn’t found any trace of Amanda.  But, he’d deal with an irate friend later; for now he just needed to follow the protocol.  “I’ll pull our guy out.”  He walked abruptly over towards his desk where his car keys sat on the edge.  They had plans for this, all set in stone years before.</p><p> Before he reached his keys, John heard the sound of metal grating on concrete as someone stood up and pushed their chair behind them.  He turned around to see the face of the young buck with his hand brushing the holster at his waist.</p><p> “I can’t let you do that Sir,” he said, shaky and unsure.  He was out of his depth, everyone in that room knew it.</p><p>“And why not?” John said brusquely as he grabbed his keys.<br/>
The boy’s voice hadn’t calmed. “They said he stays.  They’ll handle any extraction if needed.”<br/>
“If needed?” John spat.  “Do you know what if needed means for guys like us?”<br/>
The younger man shook his head.<br/>
“It’s a big fuck you from the guys behind the desks in their cushy offices.”  John brushed past him, heading for the door.  “I’ve got a few fuck yous left in me yet.”<br/>
“Sir!” John turned to look over his shoulder.  The young buck’s pistol was drawn.  “They said I wasn’t to let you leave.”</p><p>John walked back towards the gun until the butt of it lined up with the centre of his chest.  “I suggest you pull the trigger young man or you holster that weapon.  Those are your two options.”</p><p>The other four in the room stood with their hands in their pockets; their choices made.  It was a tense moment before the gun was holstered and the younger man apologised with his head bowed.  John squeezed his shoulder and smiled.  “That’s the right choice.”</p><p> <br/>
//</p><p> <br/>
The morning was clear and crisp when Oliver stirred enough for his eyes to open.  From the glimpse of the sky he could see through the break in the curtains, he knew it was going to be a scorching day and the ceiling fan whirring above him could do little to counteract that.</p><p>Felicity was turned in towards him, still wearing the clothes from the night before.  Her lips sat precariously close to his chest so that the warmth of her breath beaded down his ribs like a soft blanket of air.  It was calming, anchoring him to the bed without restraint.  But, he was already late for breakfast and the way Javier had been since Maxi’s death, Oliver staying in bed wouldn’t be tolerated.</p><p>Instinctively, he leaned over and kissed the edge of Felicity’s forehead, relishing the soft notes of her shampoo as they tickled his nostrils.  She roused enough to glance up at him with lidded eyes.</p><p>“Morning,” she whispered, her voice fragile and her throat dry.<br/>
His thumb circled the small of her back.  “Morning.  I have to go down to breakfast.”<br/>
Felicity yawned, reactively nestling her nose into his chest.  She wanted to complain, to sadly declare that he should stay right there, with her.  For some fleeting, foolish, moment, Felicity wanted to pretend that they weren’t who they were.  She wanted to pretend they had different lives.  But with wistfulness soon wore off and she lifted her head from his chest.</p><p>“Another day?” she asked quietly.  She didn’t expect an answer, there wasn’t one he could give that would feel settling.  But, she appreciated the small, kind smile he offered.</p><p>“I’m going to talk to Javier today,” Oliver started as he slipped out from between the sheets.  “I’ll tell him we’re going to travel north to check on our interests up there.” With a fresh shirt on, Oliver leaned across the bed and brushed his lips against Felicity’s pale cheek.  “I’ll get you as close to the border as I can, John can take you from there,” he whispered into her ear.</p><p>As he pulled away, she wanted to argue, to demand that there had to be a way they could both leave together at that moment.  But, for so many reasons, this wasn’t the way.  This wasn’t the place.  She bit her pink lip and nodded.  He had promised he would try her way, and Felicity had to believe him.  The alternative wasn’t one she wanted to consider.</p><p>“I’ll go check on Rosa, and then we’ll come down,” she remarked, a soft, but hollow smile turning up the corners of her full lips.  They both knew it was forced, but for now it was all either of them could summon.</p><p>“Remember what I told you last night,” he said, his eye glancing towards the drawer where he’d put the gun.  She followed his cues and nodded, as much as she hated the idea of carrying it around, she had given him her word last night that she would – and, a Cartel Compound was hardly the place to play pacifist.  Knowing their names didn’t change that.</p><p>They parted their ways with another chaste kiss at the door before Oliver headed downstairs to breakfast.</p><p>The table seemed empty, and it occurred to Oliver when he stepped in the kitchen that Ángel always seemed to make his presence known.  It didn’t help that most of the morning banter had become cold silence between a fractured group.  Oliver took his seat next to Adrian who was sitting slouched in his chair gazing at his phone.</p><p>“Put your phone away,” Javier grunted like a father to a child.<br/>
Adrian looked up from his screen with an amused laugh.  “It’s not porn or anything,” he remarked with a grin suggesting that it had been at other times.  It was enough to make Jacó laugh as he peeled his mango with a blade two inches wide.</p><p>It was then that Oliver noticed the unexpected absence of Juan, Javier’s trusted bodyguard.  He opened his mouth to point it out when three sharp knocks on the front door echoed through the halls.</p><p>“Ah, who is that?” Javier spat as he wiped a white napkin across his lips and threw it down onto his plate in frustration.</p><p>“It’s Ángel, he’s demanding to see you,” a housekeeper with a braid of grey hair and a nervous disposition said as she stood near the kitchen doorway.<br/>
Javier stood up abruptly, sending his chair toppling backwards.  “He wants to fucking see me?” Javier raged as he stormed towards the front door, Matias on his heels.<br/>
The other three left at the table shared a brief glance before they followed.</p><p>Javier was already at the door when Oliver made it to the foyer.  Even from that distance, he could see the patriarch’s skin red with anger.<br/>
“How dare you come back here?” he screamed.<br/>
Oliver looked up the stairwell to see Felicity and Rosa standing at the top of it, frozen.  Javier’s booming voice had brought in a crowd, but it didn’t move Ángel from the front step.</p><p>“Your time running the Sangre is over, old man, you’ve become soft and pitiful.  Step aside with some grace,” Ángel sniggered.<br/>
His words incensed Javier and his voice grew louder and his tone, scathing.  “You are no longer my son.”<br/>
Ángel laughed, cruelly apathetic.  “I never really was! You have always denied me.”<br/>
Neither man would back down from this show of power and conviction.  “And you think this is how you win my favour?”  As if taunting a caged animal, Javier laughed at his son, expecting him to wince at the mockery.</p><p>But, Ángel didn’t flinch, not even a little.  His rage was real, but bridled, controlled.  “I couldn’t care less about winning your fucking favour anymore.  You made your enemies.  Step down as Capos and retire.”</p><p>Javier’s voice grew sharply.  “And who would step up in my place, you? You are nothing without my name,” he boomed, thumping his fist into his chest.</p><p>“You have no fucking idea who I am or what I can do.”  As Ángel spoke, a procession of blacks cars pulled up along the drive, crunching gravel beneath them.  “What I have been doing,” he added darkly.<br/>
From behind Ángel’s shoulder, Oliver could see Juan walking up to him, taking his place behind Ángel.<br/>
“You overestimate your loyalties,” Javier warned before he spat at his son’s shoes.  “You think these people are loyal to you?”<br/>
Ángel smiled, brushing the spit from his shoe.  “No,” he replied coldly.<br/>
“They’re loyal to me,” Matias interjected, moving ahead of his father to stand beside his brother.</p><p>It was Adrian who swore loud enough under his breath to be heard, but Oliver had been thinking the same thing.<br/>
A wave of disappointment on Javier’s face merged into utter, unbridled rage.  “You too?” he spat at him.  “How dare you?”<br/>
Matias, however, was calm, and his expression lacked the menace of his brother’s.  “Step aside father, you would have soon anyway.  You can walk away from this, leave with Sele-“<br/>
Javier slapped his older son’s face with a bite that could be heard from the top of the staircase.<br/>
“Don’t you dare say her name!” he roared, before he leaned in and spoke coldly.  “You are both dead to me.”</p><p>Javier turned around, the final insult, and began to walk away.  His eyes locked with Oliver’s and, for the first time, Oliver saw in them something he hadn’t seen before.  It was just a flicker, a flinch, but it was there.  Fear.</p><p>“Don’t turn your back on me,” Ángel hissed.<br/>
His words were cold and his twisted expression was ruthless.  The sound that followed was a loud, dense pop.  </p><p>Javier stumbled forward, grasping at his chest in absolute futility.  He took only one step before he fell to the floor and took his final, gasped breaths. </p><p>The Capos was dead.<br/>
<em>Coup d'état</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. || sacrifice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Penultimate chapter....</p><p>Unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.</p><p>Here we go...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>“As far as I see it,” Ángel started, stepping over the body of his father as he studied the barrel of his gun, “you have two options.”</p><p>He stopped ahead of Adrian, a smile twisting the corners of his lips. “You join us,” he paused, running his tongue across his teeth. “Or you join him.”<br/>
His breathy laugh was cold, his stare even more so.</p><p>Oliver looked up towards Felicity, frozen near the top stair with Rosa barricaded behind her. She caught his glance, fear bleaching her complexion. He gently raised his hand from the side of his leg, begging her to stay where she was. A request she complied with, nodding softly.</p><p>Before Adrian could answer, mayhem erupted.  It started with a distant, but fast approaching, <br/>
pulsing thump of air passing around the blades of helicopters.  The glass chandelier above Adrian shook as armoured cars sped up the drive and slammed into the metal gates.  Orders in Spanish were shouted and a sudden eruption of gunfire echoed in every direction.</p><p>“Policia!”<br/>
The shouts echoed like a relay, but Oliver knew better.<br/>
He also knew what was coming.</p><p>Felicity made it halfway down the stairs, with Rosa still frozen near the top, before gunfire shattered the windows, spraying glass across the opulent foyer.  The sounds were deafening and the chaos dizzying as a canister of gas erupted, swallowing the room in a ball of noxious fumes.</p><p>With his eyes stinging and the back of his throat an inferno, Oliver made it to Felicity.  Crouched and with her top pulled up over her nose in an almost futile attempt to breathe, she followed him to a small alcove under the stairs where the gas hadn’t yet permeated.</p><p>“It’s time to go,” he spoke into her ear, his voice soft but enough to carry over the rat-tat-tat of gunfire feet away.<br/>
“Not without you, I can’t do this,” she pleaded, her chest a knot of nausea.  “It’s not supposed to be like this.”<br/>
He held her head gently in the palm of his hands, raising it enough that their eyes met, locked.  “You can,” he assured her.  “Look at what you’ve already been able to do.” He could feel her shaking, and her lips trembled.  But she nodded, resilient.  </p><p>She grabbed his hand, strangling it between her shaking fingers.  “What if it doesn’t…,” he words trailed off, afraid of saying them aloud.<br/>
“It’ll be okay,” he promised her, though she saw the flickers of regret in his eyes.  He’d planned on having more time.  More warning.  There were still plans to tighten up, what if’s to measure.  </p><p>She watched his eyes, studying them as though blinking away might cause their memory to be lost forever while she recounted the promise she’d given him.<br/>
<em>I need you to tell my parents that I loved them.  Could you do that, when this is all over, could you tell them that?</em><br/>
“I’ll tell them,” she whispered.  <br/>
Peace softened his eyes, a moment of lucidity amongst the madness. But it was fleeting.  “You need to go now, don’t look back.”</p><p>“I need to get the other girls,” Felicity said, another decisive nod sealing her decision.<br/>
Oliver shook his head as bullets shattered the stairwell balustrade above them. “There isn’t time, you need to go now.”<br/>
But he should have known by the sure expression that she wore, that Felicity had already made up her mind.  “I couldn’t save Alena.  I won’t leave them too.”<br/>
He understood, more easily than he could express in that chaotic moment.  He leaned in and kissed her head gently.  “Go upstairs and down the back entrance, I’ll cover you.” He kissed her a second time, more desperate and hurried than the last.  “Do you have the gun?”</p><p>Another scatter of bullet fire splintered the oak steps.<br/>
“Yes,” she answered, her breath quickening as her nerves exploded like the step.<br/>
He took her head once more, one last respite, an oasis amidst anarchy, and buried his eyes into hers.<br/>
“Use it. Don’t hesitate, because Felicity, they won’t.”</p><p>When he kissed her, it was keep, warm, and affection and in any other moment it would have been a kiss filled with promise.  But, knowing what might lie ahead of them, she found only sadness.</p><p>The elaborate crystal chandelier which had once hung in the grandiose entryway shattered to the ground, breaking into a million irreparable pieces and severing their last seconds together.</p><p>It was time.<br/>
There was no more seconds left to cling onto.</p><p>As he watched Felicity flee up the stairs, Oliver raised his gun and shot towards ghosts while he advanced through the foyer. Blanketed in fragments of the once magnificent centrepiece, Oliver saw Javier’s lifeless body.  After this, it was all over.</p><p>The smell of gun powder tickled his lips and debris sat stoically in his hair.<br/>
It was over.<br/>
It was time for Oliver Queen; rogue cop, murderer, Cartel sergeant – to die.</p><p>He had to.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Nothing could have prepared Felicity for the noise as they burst through the back door out into the garden. Loud bangs shattered the air as a spree of bullets tore through concrete and dirt alike. The  heated air was smothering and dirty with debris and ash as a helicopter circled above, it’s rotor blades spinning out of control as flames leapt from the tail.</p><p>The DEA had underestimated the firepower the Sangre would possess and that those loyal to it would rather die than surrender.  It would prove to be a fatal mistake, as the pilot struggled to maintain control and his gunner’s body hung precarious and limp from the open door.  They had thought themselves Goliath, only David had rocket launchers instead of stones.</p><p>“Where are we going?” Rosa shouted over the deafening noise as the two crouched beside a mangled hedge.<br/>
Felicity pointed towards the pool house where she expected to find Gabriela and Annika.  As the gunfight was drawn back towards the main house, Felicity took Rosa’s hand and the two made a break for it, running through the debris of shattered statues and the wounded.</p><p>They found the other two women cowering behind the couches, kneeling in what remained of the smashed patio doors.<br/>
“We need to go,” Felicity said, the urgency in her voice making the other women startle.<br/>
“Go where? Out there?” Gabriela reacted, fear lacing her tone as her eyes were wide and wild.<br/>
Felicity nodded as she took a slow, steading breath – the first she had taken since the moment Javier had fallen.  “Do you trust me?”<br/>
There were unspent tears in Gabriela’s dark eyes and shards of glass had fallen into her tangled hair.  “I don’t even know you.”<br/>
“Yes,” Annika said, the clearness of the word a shock to everyone. She turned to Gabriela, took her hand and squeezed it.  “We go with her or we die here.”<br/>
It was Rosa who asked the question everyone else was thinking.  “You speak English?”<br/>
The petite Russian shrugged, a tiny smile lifting up one side of her pink lips.<br/>
They were still missing one.</p><p>“Where is Adriana?” Felicity asked, glancing briefly around the room.<br/>
“Leave her,” Gabriela scoffed, but as she brushed back tears Felicity could tell she didn’t mean it.<br/>
“If we leave her, we’re no better than them.”<br/>
Gabriela nodded, small and timid.  “Last I saw her, she was at Angel’s old house, packing up his things.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>Gabriela had been right, and the four women found Adriana on the floor of the kitchen, blood seeping out of a wound in her thigh.  She was conscious, but still her eyes focused on a vacant spot ahead of her.  She wasn’t crying or flinching as the sound of gunshots echoed across the whole estate, and she barely registered Felicity as she tore away the bottom of her shirt to wrap around Adriana’s fresh injury.</p><p>“We have to go Adriana, can you walk?” Felicity asked as the others crouched behind the white cabinetry.<br/>
Adriana looked up, her eyes were softly lidded but saturated with old tears – as though she had finally given way to them. “Why?”<br/>
“Because you won’t die here Adriana, not like this,” Felicity said, urgency and belief threaded through every word.<br/>
Adriana looked away and sighed, her shoulders slumping forward.  It was as though they carried far more burden than she could hold anymore.<br/>
“I deserve to.  I’m no better than Ángel,” she said softly.<br/>
“You can be,” Felicity urged, her words pulling Adriana’s attention again.  “The ledger, you know where it is don’t you?”<br/>
Even if Adriana hadn’t nodded, her eyes would have given her away.  She did. And when she glanced towards the doorway to the living room, Felicity knew where to look.<br/>
“He has a safe which he told me to empty, it’s already open.  I knew what he was going to do, I –,” the words stalled in her throat, giving way to a pained sob. </p><p>“He’s spent years making you this person, don’t die for him Adriana. Don’t you die for that son of a bitch,” Gabriela said, stern and unyielding as she offered her hand.  “None of us are going to die for these fuckers.”</p><p>While the others waited with Adriana in the kitchen, Felicity made her way to the once-elegant living room.  It was in a state of disarray with half-packed boxes on every surface and shards of glass from the smashed sliding doors littering the floor.  As she had promised, Felicity found the safe opened with a box beneath it and a spray of blood on the wall below; Adriana must have been standing there when a stray bullet struck her in the leg.</p><p>A leather bound book that looked no more important that an accounting ledger was tucked into the side of the safe.  It felt like an eternity for Felicity as she stood there looking at it, afraid of what she might find inside its pages.  She noted some edges were yellowed and tatty and the spine was cracked from wear as she pulled it from its home.</p><p>Opening to a page near the middle she was confronted with a harrowing truth, there were so many. Each line bore a name and columns were ruled beside them for measurements, hair type, age, defining features, buyer, price, and another simply for notes.  Notes were penned in Spanish, and Felicity knew she had neither the stomach nor the time to decipher the text, but she had already determined that the ledger was leaving with them.</p><p>“Who are you?” a sharp voice said from behind.<br/>
Felicity turned slowly to find Gloria standing amidst the disorder with a gun raised and pointed at Felicity’s head.<br/>
“I could always tell you weren’t like the others, so who are you Megan?” she quipped, her thin red lips curling into what might only be described as a demonic smirk.  “Is that even your name? I bet not.”<br/>
“Why don’t you ask your questions without pointing a gun at me? I might be more open to answering them,” Felicity said, cold and stale while her grip tightened on the ledger.<br/>
Gloria was amused, but unmoved.  “Put your gun on the ground,” she ordered caustically.<br/>
Felicity did as she was told, placing her gun on the ground before kicking it towards Gloria.  “Good, you aren’t as stupid as the others,” Gloria remarked, a bitter scathing drenching her tone. “Now hand me the book.”</p><p>The cast iron skillet landed with a thud against the side of Gloria’s face, dropping her instantly to the ground in a crumpled heap.<br/>
“I have wanted to do that from the first moment I met that bitch,” Rosa said, pride curling her lips into a smile.<br/>
Felicity gathered her gun from the floor as she finally released the breath she’d been holding.  “You have impeccable timing and aim Rosa.”</p><p>The five girls stumbled out the backdoor to find part of the main house ablaze and smoke billowing like thick grey clouds above them.  Under her breath, Felicity hoped that Oliver had made it out and that John Diggle would keep his promise.</p><p>Adriana was struggling to walk even with Gabriela’s help, and while they were out in the open they were at risk from catching any of the stray bullets being fired wildly from both sides.<br/>
“Hold this,” Felicity said, as she handed Rosa the ledger and tucked her gun into the front of her jeans.  “We’ll have to take her weight, we need to get to the front gate as quickly as we can,” she explained to Gabriela as she positioned herself on the other side of Adriana.<br/>
“The front gate? Are you fucking mad? If we’re not shot, we’ll be arrested.”<br/>
All four of the girls wore the same panicked expression.<br/>
“I have a way out, but you’ll have to trust me.”</p><p>Rosa screamed abruptly and as Felicity spun around to see Gloria, gun raised and blood pouring from a wound at her hairline, she acted on a split second impulse. Don’t hesitate, they won’t.</p><p>She squeezed off two shots, both striking Gloria in the chest, killing her instantly.  It was Annika who checked the lifeless body crumpled down the stairs, a pool of blood forming beneath her.  She was dead.</p><p>“Who the fuck are you?” Gabriela remarked, pride tinging her voice.<br/>
“Wait,” Adriana said as they started walking again.<br/>
“Adriana, we have to –,”<br/>
“There is someone else in there,” she panted, the loss of blood making her words slurred at the edges.<br/>
“Carmen?” Rosa asked.</p><p>Adriana shook her head, limply.  “No, another girl. Ángel kept her, she’s in the basement.”<br/>
Her body slumped forward, most of her weight now on the two women either side of her.  She dug into her blood-soaked jeans and retrieved a key she handed to Felicity.  “Al-,” she panted, but the word was lost as she fainted.<br/>
Annika took Felicity’s place, as Felicity headed back towards the house.  “Get to the front gate, I’ll meet you there.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Felicity unlocked the door and was greeted by a blanket of cold, stale air that caused a shiver up her spine.  She couldn’t imagine who or what she might find in such a dank, cold place, but she believed Adriana for reasons she couldn’t explain.  Reasons that saw her descend down an old metal staircase, her gun already drawn and a breath lodged in her throat.</p><p>She could hear her own breathing, her rapid heartbeat, and her footsteps sounded like thunderclaps echoing off the walls of the cramped hallway.  But she pressed on, as the chaos above her faded into mere ambience that shook some stone dust from the ceiling.</p><p>A creaking drew her attention immediately down the end of the corridor, where a caged light flickered.<br/>
“Is anyone here?” Felicity called into the distance, her weapon focused on the shifting shadows.</p><p>Alena looked up, her last shoelace left undone.  <em>Had she heard something, or had her mind finally given itself over to madness?</em></p><p>“Hello?” the voice called out again.<br/>
Alena stumbled to her feet, opening her mouth to reply, but no sound came out, not even a strangled breath.<br/>
Tears sprung to her eyes as she felt her body grow limp from sheer exhaustion.  She was hearing things, hearing a voice that sounded like a long-faded memory. It couldn’t be real, could it?</p><p>Felicity leaned against the cold, white wall, stealing a moment to finally breathe.  Perhaps Adriana had been wrong, or confused? Whatever the basement was, it appeared empty.</p><p>“Felicity?” her friend’s name fell from Alena’s lips, broken and frail, but all that she could muster.  She knew her sister wasn’t there, but for a moment, imagining she was gave Alena a sense of peace she hadn’t felt in so long.<br/>
<em>It must have been what death felt like.</em></p><p>Felicity bolted down the rest of the hallway, her stomach wretched into her throat and all careful consideration of her surroundings left by the wayside.<br/>
“Alena?” she cried out, reaching the door where pained voice had emanated from.<br/>
The key shook in Felicity’s hand as she tried to thread it into the lock.  Her whole body was drenched with a mixture of fear and adrenaline.  <em>Could it really be true?</em></p><p>She threw open the door to find what felt like a mirage standing before her.  But, when Alena sobbed forward with the same level of surprise and fear, they both knew what they were seeing was real.</p><p>“You found me,” Alena whispered.  She was much thinner than Felicity knew her, gaunt and frail, but there was no denying the sight.  “How did you find me? You have to go, there are people here,” her voice rose to a panic as her svelte body shook.<br/>
Felicity embraced Alena tightly, smoothing her palm down her hair. “It’s okay, we’re okay.”</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The front gate was like a warzone.  Sangre supporters barricaded inside the foyer had created an impenetrable line with shooters taking aim from behind cars and from top storey windows.  Once again, it was clear to Felicity that the DEA hadn’t counted on the amassed firepower or the willingness many had to die for the Sangre.  They were floundering, holding their own line just inside the gates, but unable to advance.  Whatever advantage they had gained in the element of surprise, they had already lost.</p><p>Soot tainted the air together with the pungent odour of gasoline from the car the Sangre had set alight near the gates in an effort to cloud the view of those on the ground.  It had worked, and those that had tried to push forward were clipped down by the snipers in the upper floors.</p><p>Bodies from both sides lay strew in the valley between the two opposing factions.  There was no dismissing the waste and the long spindles of devastation that would inevitably leak into so many lives.  To many, they were perhaps nameless, collateral damage in a fight against those fundamentally opposed to their own ideals.  But, they were someone’s child, a brother, a sister, a friend.  Felicity once believed, without doubt, that there was good and there was bad in the world and while that was still true to an extent – there were many who were unredeemable – it was not always so starkly black and white.</p><p>Evil existed.</p><p>But, perhaps many who fell at the feet of it were misguided, broken, traumatised, naïve, or had never been taught any better.  <em>What of those?  </em>Felicity knew it could never be simple and there was no answer she could give that would reconcile what she had seen, but to say good was not always inherently good and bad was not always without redemption. </p><p>Felicity found the girls cowering behind a white pick-up near the slope of the property where it dropped off into thick bush and razor wire.  They were yards away from the other side of the gate where she hoped John was waiting.  While there was the possibility they could make a break for it, the exchange of fire was unpredictable and Adriana was dozing in and out of consciousness.  There was no way they could make it.  She leaned around the bumper of the car, scanning what lay ahead of them.  There were a few cars they could hopscotch behind, including Oliver’s Viper, but beyond that lay an open gap.</p><p>If they ran towards the barricade of agents they could be shot down for advancing, or picked out by the Sangre for what would be considered a traitorous defection.  She couldn’t see either Oliver or John and her heart began to race in her chest.  <em>Maybe John hadn’t known? Maybe Oliver hadn’t made it?</em>  She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly to push those thoughts to the back of her mind.</p><p>“Room Seven?” a young officer with a bulletproof vest asked as he crouched between the car and the thicket of bush.<br/>
Felicity blinked down at the white block letters written across his chest DEA as she aimed the gun at his head, her hands unsteady and her mind awash with a thousand colliding emotions; pain, confusion, distrust, angry, fear – they all had their place, vying for more.<br/>
“Are you room seven? John Diggle sent me,” he added, gazing briefly down at the hair trigger pointed at him.  <br/>
"Where is John?” she asked, her voice sharp but breathless.<br/>
“We have to get you out of here.”</p><p>She watched him with guarded eyes, but there was no other alternative.  She had to believe that only three people in the world knew what Room Seven meant, and that John had trusted to tell a fourth.  A bullet shattered the side mirror of the pick-up.  It was time to go.  Her questions would need to wait.<br/>
“They all come,” Felicity said, her body shaking but her eyes staying unflinchingly on the officer.<br/>
He shook his head without glancing at the women cowering along with Felicity.  “Those weren’t my orders.”<br/>
“You have new orders.  They all go, or none of us do.”<br/>
He blinked at her, his black helmet shielding the rise of his eyebrows as he considered her ultimatum.  “Alright,” he relented.  “Follow me, stay low.”<br/>
He looked at Gabriella and Annika, a barely conscious Adriana between them.  “Can you manage her?”<br/>
Gabriella nodded, firm.  “We’ve got her.”<br/>
He drew his weapon.  “Stay behind me.” </p><p>As he moved, Gabriella and Annika moved behind him, Adriana draped between them. Rosa and Alena followed, while Felicity, gun drawn, stayed at the back.  She could feel her blood coursing through her veins, thumping into her skin as her knuckles whitened around the trigger.  Still, she couldn’t see Oliver.</p><p>They were heading towards a white van half a football field away, but as the sound of AR-15s cracked through the air, it might as well have been across the other side of the country.  It felt like a moment of respite, a pause in the constant barrage of bullets and shrapnel, and Felicity found herself breathing deeply in the break.  It was mere seconds, but it felt like a lifetime.</p><p>They were almost at the van when, turning back, Felicity saw Ángel crouched behind a large black Dodge, a long weapon in his hands.  The distance between them was too much for Felicity to make out the intricacies of his expression, but there was no doubt in her mind that he was sneering at them.  He raised the weapon and took aim – not at Felicity, but at Rosa and the ledger she was still clutching to her chest.</p><p>In a split second, Felicity made a decision.<br/>
Pushing Rosa to the ground, the bullet meant for her instead sliced through Felicity’s arm, a little above her elbow, exiting through the other side.</p><p>With adrenaline coursing through her body like a drug, Felicity grabbed Rosa and ran for the open door.  The agent returned fire, but blockaded behind steel and rubber meant none of the shots hit Ángel.</p><p>Felicity heard the hurried orders of the agent as he pushed the girls, one after the other, inside, and she could feel the warmth of her blood sliding down her arm as she frantically looked around.  Where was Oliver?<br/>
“Seven, we need to go!”<br/>
She knew he was right.<br/>
But with her heart in her throat, she couldn’t.  <em>She needed to know.</em></p><p>Three sharp pops pulled her focus back towards where they had run from.  It was Oliver shooting back towards the house as he neared his car.  He turned to look at her, a stolen moment of peace in the madness, nodding just the once as he opened the door.</p><p>“Seven, get in the van, now.”<br/>
She felt the tears streaming down her cheeks as she looked around at the carnage.<br/>
A hand pulled on her wrist, nudging her towards the van as she clamped a wadded bolt of fabric to her arm, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away from the car beside the embankment.</p><p>She watched the door close with Oliver inside and her breath felt heavy on her chest, like a foot stamping down on it repeatedly.</p><p>She counted the seconds like hours as she stumbled back towards the van at the officer’s insistence.</p><p>She didn’t hear the car start.<br/>
For a moment she heard nothing before a deafening explosion ripped through all other noise, and as she watched Oliver’s car become engulfed in thick black smoke and wild orange flames, she heard nothing but the ringing in her ears afterwards.</p><p>Then a scream, piercing and raw.<br/>
“Oliver!”<br/>
It was coming from her own body, though she didn’t recognise the sound.</p><p>She fell forward, running on only instinct before a hand caught her wrist, pulling her backwards.  She fought, tearing her nails into the hand, but, weak, she was unable to release herself.</p><p>“We have to go.”<br/>
The words echoed like she was underwater as the heat from the flames reached her cheeks.  </p><p>A second explosion flipped the charred car onto the roof as a pylon of thick, dark smoke suffocated the air.</p><p>She looked up, peaking through the dust and smoke to the blue sky that lay hidden behind it.  How the beauty of the morning seemed so fragile and so taunting.</p><p><em>How could it shine so brilliantly blue when the world below it was dark?</em><br/>
Those were her last thoughts as she collapsed into her own darkness.</p><p>Oliver Queen was dead.</p><p>
  <strong>|Starling City, Two months later|</strong>
</p><p><br/>
A charcoal mist hung in the air while a deep and heavy blanket of heat signalled an impending rainstorm. A soft drizzle was not so heavy to need an umbrella, but it was enough to leave her skin dewy. The leaves on the oak trees lining the property had mostly turned a burnt orange, with only a few retaining shades of yellowy-green. </p><p>Fresh rain from the night before left an earthy scent in the air without the warmth of the sun, and there was a faint woodiness woven into the gentle breeze which rustled through the lower branches. </p><p>There wasn't any more Felicity could say about the poignant day. Its finality was unremarkable, and the quietness swathing it was as it needed to be. </p><p>She hung back from the others, her hands resting at her sides as the wind swept up her blonde hair, fastened in a neat, low ponytail. She wore little make-up, just a touch of blush on her pale cheeks and a swish of rouge across her lips. Her heart weighed heavy in her chest as she watched a mother grieve over a son she hadn't seen in years, while her husband - a father in his own right - offered her a kind and understanding embrace. </p><p>Felicity wasn't sure what she had expected from the austere family, but it was plain to see that their emotion was genuine and their loss was great. </p><p>Her being there, as they unveiled a headstone carved with Oliver's name and the word beloved beneath it felt intrusive, bordering on voyeuristic. But, when she had accompanied John to tell them of Oliver's death and, more importantly perhaps - his sacrifice, Mrs Queen had asked them both to return for what would be his funeral at the end of the week. </p><p>There was no body to bury, but instead Felicity had watched, a silent and respectful observer, as the small crowd lowered a box with his badge, a photo, and a few personal trinkets into a small grave.  Besides Felicity and John, in attendance that dreary day where the sky sat between grey and black was both Oliver's parents, his youngest sister wearing a jacket that had once belonged to her brother, and two good friends from high school, Tommy and Laurel. </p><p>There was no one else privy to the knowledge of Oliver's sacrifice, no one else able to reconcile his truth, and know the price he so readily paid. Oliver Queen was dead. To many he would die a criminal, a cop killer, a traitor to his city and country. But to those five, the ones who had known him best, they buried a hero. A man willing to lose everything to protect them, to save strangers, to do what was right - despite the cost. </p><p>There would be no obituary.<br/>
No pardon.<br/>
No real grave beyond the one in the Queen Estate.<br/>
But they would know, just as he wanted them to. </p><p>And, in the end, Felicity knew that was all that mattered. </p><p>She stayed motionless as the grieving mother made her path towards her. She was tall and slender, beautiful despite her age, and demure in a black dress cut below her knees and a small shawl around her shoulders. </p><p>“Thank you for coming, Felicity. Having people who knew Oliver in his truth,” she paused, no doubt to compose herself before she continued. “It means a lot.”<br/>
“Of course Mrs Queen. I am so sorry for your loss.”<br/>
She nodded gracefully, her golden hair catching what little glimpse of the sun peeked through the layers of foggy clouds.<br/>
“We have lived with that pain of him leaving for so many years now and I had always hoped he would come back to me,” she spoke softly as her eyes glanced around the rolling yard. “So many memories here.” </p><p>She paused again, her composure an elegant dance between loss and memory.<br/>
“You knew him well, intimately?” she asked.<br/>
Her question was astute and insightful and far more blunt than Felicity had anticipated. When they had first met, John simply introduced her as someone working with the agency and she had offered no clarification. Despite their honesty with the family, it was still important that the world believed Oliver was the murderer they thought him to be and that Felicity was merely a face in the crowd. </p><p>That belief kept his family safe and was his final request.<br/>
“Yes,” Felicity answered. She deserved whatever truth Felicity could offer.<br/>
“I'm glad he wasn't alone,” she answered. Her voice was soft, and faint to the point Felicity almost missed her words. She kept her eyes focused towards a large oak tree where a wooden swing hung from a long, thick limb.  “That was his favourite place as a child. He broke his arm when he was 7 because he swung so high just to jump from it. His father called him reckless, which I suppose he was.”<br/>
She turned, his reddish lips turning into a faint smile.  “I had always thought him adventurous. Perhaps he was both. We paint our own pictures of the person we knew.” <br/>
“He cared very much for you, for his family. It hurt him the most thinking that he had hurt you.”<br/>
“Mr Diggle said that because of the information Oliver had collected over the years they were able to stop trafficking rings.” Moira Queen’s pale eyes searched for the answer as she spoke.<br/>
“That's correct,” Felicity answered, her voice hushed.<br/>
“After we took him to the doctor's to set his arm in a cast and his father had scolded him for jumping from the swing, we asked him why he did it.”  She looked sullen and sad towards the wood and braided rope.  “He hadn't jumped from boyish arrogance or even for adventure. He had jumped because as he was swinging, he saw a small birds nest shaking in the limb above him. Afraid that even slowly down would shake the small eggs from inside it, Oliver threw himself off the swing. That is why I knew he wasn't what they called him.” As she breathed, her exhale passed like a sigh over her lips. “Not a murderer, not a traitor, not my boy.” Her voice fractured as she gave way to tears before she leaned in and gently clasped Felicity's hand. “You have given me peace, thank you.”</p><p>In the end, that was all that mattered.<br/>
He was a man. Not a monster.<br/>
A hero, not the villain.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>“Are you sure I can't convince you to come with us?” John said as the black Land Rover pulled up alongside a small airplane hangar on the far outskirts of town. The dust they had left in their wake was beginning to settle as Felicity looked out towards a small white jet with its door open. <br/>
“I don't think the DEA will approve of my methods,” Felicity replied, a gentle smile curling the corners of her mouth.<br/>
John retorted quickly. “I'm sure I could handle the headache. You would be an asset.”<br/>
She appreciated his comments, she did. But that life wasn’t for her. For now their paths needed to diverge. Her eyes drifted back to the jet as she released a delicate sigh.  “Just promise me you'll take care of her.”<br/>
“Alena has her new identity courtesy of you.  She’s accepted to work with the DEA, but you have my word that she be safe,” he promised, his words as sure as Felicity could hope for.  They had offered Alena an out, a new life and a new identity, but there was much more to untangle and her experiences wouldn’t let her walk away from the chance.  It was honourable and noble, and Felicity couldn’t fault it.<br/>
Felicity exhaled a warm spiral of air. They had already said their goodbyes that morning, it was better she didn't prolong them.<br/>
“We couldn't have done this without the three of you, you know,” John added.<br/>
She nodded. Alena had opened a backdoor, a Trojan, within the framework of her skeleton key, one Felicity took only a few days to unravel. Together with the ledger and Oliver's previous intel, the collapse of the Sangre was like a house of cards.</p><p>“No one knows Felicity Smoak, you could return to your life,” John continued, his gaze moving outside the window.<br/>
She could, she supposed. But she wasn't the same person anymore. No one was. “There is nothing for me there anymore.”<br/>
He signed, nodded faintly.  “The agency will be up my ass about letting you leave.  They wanted you aboard this plane.”<br/>
She laughed, a softness she hadn't felt in so long. “I'm sure you'll think of something to tell them.”<br/>
He offered her his hand. “It was nice to meet you Felicity.”<br/>
She tore her hand from the steering wheel and shook John’s.  “Same here John.”<br/>
“Your plane is in the hangar. Once you take off, tell your pilot where you want to go. The rest is up to you.” He gave her hand a small squeeze before he opened the door, stepped out, and nodded.  “Take care number seven.”<br/>
She offered him a kind smile. “Back at you, John.” </p><p>In the car Felicity watched the plane take off with John and Alena aboard. It was bittersweet, but Alena needed a new life, a new identity. She was safe and that was all that mattered. </p><p>Once aboard her own jet and in the air, Felicity relaxed into the beige leather seat and watched the clouds disappear below them. <br/>
It was the co-pilot who approached, a younger man with a freshly laundered uniform.  “The pilot needs to set a course Ms.”<br/>
“Of course,” she smiled.  “Paris.”<br/>
He nodded courteously before he left her alone to nurse the small glass of whisky she’d poured herself.</p><p>Her new path awaited.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Told you I was going out with a bang...<br/>Final chapter next week, both for this fic and for me xox</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. || rebirth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oliver Queen is Dead...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>I am legitimately emotional, this is it...</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>You can find the soundtrack <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4wen5CEHe8Yxil8nqFyfq7?si=Aeh4sbUZRnWmPbTJuC9gcw">here</a></strong>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4wen5CEHe8Yxil8nqFyfq7?si=Aeh4sbUZRnWmPbTJuC9gcw"> <strong>  </strong> </a>
</p><p>
  <strong>Without further delay, I hope you like this final chapter</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>The embrace of the Parisian sun was warm despite the early hour.  It was a little after nine as Felicity walked the cobbled square, breathing in the fragrant spring air.  She had taken that same walk every day for the last seven since arriving in Paris.  She took her coffee at the same table in the same artisan café each morning, carefully watching the crowds, looking for faces that grew similar.  She had been vigilant, covered her tracks and rewrote what couldn’t be, all culminating into a few more days left of this life.</p><p>While it was true on the face of it that the Cártel de la Sangre had fallen, much like Humpty Dumpty off his lofty wall, there was still a shadow that hung around every corner.  Of the sergeants, Matias, Ángel, and Adrian had been arrested and were languishing in prison while jurisdiction was argued. Nicolás Moreno had been absent when the raid had taken place and had slipped through the cracks, disappearing deeper into his network further south.  As yet, they had not found him.  Juan had been shot during the raid, taking a total of 22 bullets before he succumbed to his wounds alongside many others. Jacó had been severely wounded with one bullet severing his lower spinal cord and rendering him paralysed.  His prison was a hospital, but it was no less bleaker than the others.</p><p>Michael and Ana’s home in California had been raided the following day.  They found Michael with a bullet in his head and every scrap of paper removed from the house.  Ana was nowhere to be found.</p><p>That left only Oliver, the enigma with pale eyes and a devil’s smile.  In the eyes of the Sangre he had died one of them, a title – while necessary – that sat uneasy in Felicity’s chest. </p><p>Like rats on sinking ships, those associated with the Blood Cartel abandoned their allegiance if they could, or went to ground if they couldn’t.  And, of course, there was still the ever-present danger that within the DEA itself there were rats kept afloat.  They had never found the leak that allowed for Ángel to decimate a team and capture Alena.  That was why Felicity looked, scanning the crowds for faces she might have seen before, or people that paid her more attention that a petite blonde nursing a coffee deserved.  Slowly Felicity had been dismantling her past, Megan was almost gone.  There was just one more thing she needed to do.</p><p>Unlike the other days, Felicity didn’t stop at the little café, walking instead into a small art gallery,</p><p><em>Votre Artiste</em>.  Her shoes clipped on the polished marble floor of the hollow space.  Despite the lack of excessive furniture or gaudy trimmings, there was a peace about the gallery that felt inviting and homely as a wafting aroma of fresh herbs teased the senses.</p><p>The artwork on display was carefully curated against smooth white walls, and lit in just the right angles to draw the eye towards them, eager to get lost in intricate brush strokes of realism to the fun, vibrant hues of surrealism.  Each was like a model, static and alluring.</p><p>Felicity noted the sound of footsteps approaching, a soft clip of heels worn by someone who could walk elegant and soft, as she stood in front of Mort Rouge.  An abstract painting of deep slashes of red, from poppy to scarlet.  Many might have thought it violent and dark, perhaps even wild or manic.  But, Felicity saw something careful in each brushstroke, something considered and intricate, purporting to the idea that perhaps madness came from the heart of something different.  Sometimes the beginning of life can be just as bloody as the end of it.</p><p>“I half expected you not to come,” a soft, feminine voice spoke as Felicity turned to make acquaintance with the familiar face.<br/>Selene looked just as Felicity remembered her, despite her hair being a little longer and lighter; a wave of luxuriant caramel sitting just below her shoulders.<br/>“I also imagined you might have come with good news, but your face tells me that notion was as foolish as it was whimsical,” Selene continued, her precisely curled lashes blinking gently against her cinnamon-dusted cheeks. </p><p>Selene led Felicity to a small glass office in the corner of the gallery.  Its windows looked out across a small, manicured courtyard where a fountain trickled and flowers bloomed, blithely unaware that they one day might sit in the vase on Selene’s oak desk.</p><p> As she sat down behind it, her shoulders appeared weighted as they slumped forward.<br/>“Javier is dead isn’t he?” she asked.  Fearing the answer, she kept her eyes low, fixated on a single strand of hair caught in the fabric of her dress.<br/>“I’m afraid so,” Felicity replied.  There was no way to shield her from that reality.<br/>Selene nodded calmly; she had expected that eventuality from the first moment she knew who he was, but that didn’t make the crushing in her heart any less suffocating.<br/>“How?” As Selene asked the question, she blinked up and caught Felicity’s gaze.  “Please, I want to know.”<br/>“Ángel shot him.”</p><p>There was very little surprise on Selene's face, a tiny flinch was all that spoke to it.  “Javier once told me that he believed his death would never come at the hands of a stranger, I suppose he was right.”<br/>“Power breeds contempt, even in those we love,” Felicity added, her voice soft and reflective.<br/>“Is that what you came to tell me, Megan?”<br/>“The Sangre crumbled, most of the sergeants along with it.” Felicity retrieved a business card from her bag and placed it studiously on the table before pushing it towards Selene.<br/>“What’s this?” she asked, her shoulders, still bearing weight, stiffened.<br/>“Someone who can help if you ever need it.”<br/>Selene’s retort was quick, but quiet. “You said the Sangre crumbled.”<br/>“You and I both know that’s no guarantee.  Ángel lost the thing he craved before he had a chance to claim it.  If he finds out you’re pregnant with Javier’s baby, there is no telling what conclusion he’ll come to.”<br/>“You think he’ll believe I set this up, or Javier?”</p><p>Felicity pushed the card closer until Selene picked it up, holding it cautiously between two hands.<br/>“There is no knowing what he’ll think.  Take the card, John will help you.”<br/>“Is he helping you?”<br/>Felicity stood up, a smile resting on her face.  “He did.”<br/>“What of Oliver?” Selene asked, as she stood too. <br/>“Oliver’s dead,” Felicity answered quietly.<br/>“I’m sorry for your loss,” Selene said, genuine kindness lacing her tone.<br/>Both women shared a silent moment of understanding in grief before the two parted ways.</p><p>Felicity's last act as Megan was complete.</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>The nearly 5-hour journey by train to Hendaye, on the border of Spain and France, seemed to pass quickly as afternoon shifted into early evening.  Felicity had taken a window seat in a train car with only a smattering of other travellers.  The views were scenic in parts and the cooled air kept the temperature pleasant.  She had only one small suitcase she kept tucked near her feet, and occasionally glanced at the pages of her book, though she read very little of it.</p><p>Once in Hendaye, Felicity made only one brief stop before she bided her time near the station where her next train would depart from.  The temperature had fallen and the brisk night was biting, but refreshing as she wrapped her arms around her waist.</p><p>She watched, silent and astute, as travellers – families, businessmen, tourists, and alike – bustled around her, intensely focused on only what they needed, with no interest reserved for her.</p><p>Aboard the <em>Surexpreso</em>, Felicity’s first class ticket afforded her a Cama Gran Clase, a single sleeper compartment with en-suite facilities and cabin service.  It was not ornate or flashy, but what it lacked in overt grandeur, it made up in practicality and comfort.  As the train readied itself for departure, Felicity sunk down into the padded seat with an exhausted sigh.  It had only been two and a half months, but the toll those days – hours – had taken on her, were clearly visible in her pallid cheeks and despondent eyes.</p><p>This would be the last of it, 14 hours – one last sunset – until she was neither Felicity or Megan.  Both women needed to be shed, left behind before she reached Lisbon.</p><p>The low, constant rumble of the train on its tracks was Felicity’s abiding companion as her heavy eyes drifted closed, her soul ready for a moment’s respite.  But, none came.  Pools of crimson and tattered pages filled with the names of the unforgotten haunted her.  She pressed her sodden cheek into the headrest as she squeezed her eyes closed, desperate for quiet.  But the ghosts kept coming; <em>Ava, Lakin, Maggie, Juls, Tameka…. Amanda.</em></p><p>A breath shuddered from her lips as Felicity opened her flooded eyes.  Amanda Payne had died before Oliver had arrived in Sinaloa. For five years he had chased a ghost, saving so many others along the way. Amanda had been the catalyst for it all and, perhaps, that meant her death was not in vain. <em>Perhaps that was enough to gain peace. </em></p><p>The world outside the window had gone dark and grown quiet.<br/>She needed to walk.</p><p>Locking the door behind her, Felicity walked through the still carriages where people spoke in whispers to each other or clutched their backpacks to their chest as they carved out just a few hours rest.  The bar carriage was a little more lively with Eurovision-style music playing softly over the sea of chatter.  At a precursory glance, Felicity counted about 15 other passengers and a barman who seemed to enjoy talking with such an eclectic group of backpackers and professionals.</p><p>With a dimpled smile, the barman took Felicity’s order and returned a few moments later with her gin, tonic, and a splash of lime.  He seemed to have a way of knowing she didn’t want small talk and he moved away with the same, kindly smile.</p><p>“Drinking alone?”<br/>The man’s voice was warm and fluid, possessing an unmistakably attractive quality in its tone.  For a moment she thought she heard <em>him</em> in the voice, but she knew it was nothing more than her wishful imagination.  Steeling herself for the face of a stranger, Felicity took a sip of her drink before she glanced to her left where he stood.<br/>His features were handsome; sooty hair and dark, umber eyes.  But, it wasn’t Oliver.  It never was.<br/>“I prefer it that way,” she answered him.  Her tone was polite, but her words direct enough that he knew her to be serious.  He smiled as he tipped his head forward, before he left just as uneventfully as he’d approached.</p><p>Later, alone in her room, Felicity stood in the confined bathroom, blinking at her reflection through the foggy mirror. The face, newly framed with ebony locks, seemed so foreign to her, but the more she studied her pale features and wide eyes, she saw a glint of something she had willed away months ago. <em>Hope.</em></p><p>Dragging a brush through her damp, dark locks, she allowed the feeling to linger. A trickle through her veins, an infinitesimal jump in her pulse - a rebirth. </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>//</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Lisbon in the early morning was painted with a bright blue sky adorned with sweeping strokes of opaque white clouds.  The temperature was warming and the sweetest pinch of salt air was woven into a light breeze that flirted with skirts, long and short alike.</p><p>The street market was already bustling with stalls and wanderers as heavenly aromas teased and corralled passers-by.  Felicity moved easily through the crowds stopping only to purchase a warm loaf of sourdough bread and a rainbow of fresh fruits.</p><p>A taxi with a driver that spoke in broken English dropped her at her destination wishing her a fine weekend. She thanked him with a smile and tip, waiting until he'd driven around a corner before she looked towards her destination.</p><p>The sun was hitting the calm ocean, making it glisten like a pool of diamonds set out on blue chiffon.  Pier 3 was at the far end, built with planks that had warped a little to the left.  She walked to the very end, stepping over abandoned fishing nets, until she stopped in front of a 40ft ketch. The white hull was painted with a single black stripe and the name branded onto the stern read <em>Raven’s Ghost</em>.</p><p>Glancing up at the sky as a flock of noisy seabirds chanted, Felicity inhaled a deep, salty breath before she stepped over the gap.</p><p>Felicity set the groceries down on a pale oak bench top as her toes twisted in her braided sandals.  She felt the movement behind her, a brush of warmth creeping up her naked spine.  A breath hitched, sharp and jagged in her throat, while her fingers clung to the side of the sink, her knuckles blanching white.</p><p><em>Turn around,</em> she told herself.<br/>Slowly, her feet moved, her eyes afraid to look up from the ground. <br/><em>It was never him</em>. </p><p>“Felicity,” he whispered.<br/>Her eyes darted upwards. “Oliver,” she sobbed.<br/><em>This time, it was.</em></p><p>His hands fisted at his sides, swelling with the desperate desire to reach out and touch her, but holding back for fear she might vanish back into his imagination.  “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he spoke, soft as his eyes swam across her face.<br/>“I didn’t know if you’d be here,” she answered, her voice fractured.  That you’d be real.<br/>“I’m sorry, I –,” he started, but his words froze when she reached out and touched his hand.<br/>“But here we are,” she whispered, frailty still making her words faint.  As she took a step towards him, Oliver’s hand twisted in hers, entwining their fingers.</p><p>They kissed, slow and tentative at first, with her free palm resting on his chest while his palm ghosted the slope of her hip.  But slowness soon evolved into haste, and tentativeness into salacious hunger.  Her palm slid up to his throat curving around the warmth of his bare skin as his pulse echoed through her thumb.  His hands gripped her waist, tight enough that a sigh blew from her mouth, misting his lips.</p><p>In a flurry, her legs were around his waist as he carried her to the bedroom.  There was barely enough room to walk around the edges of the large, cream-coated bed, but as they shed their clothing in wild abandonment, neither seemed to particularly care about the confined space.</p><p>Pinning Felicity to the bed, Oliver kissed a warm path down her throat to her sternum where strands of dark hair lay across her porcelain skin.  He took a tendril and wrapped it around his finger as a curious smile brightened his face.</p><p>“It suits you,” he breathed, dropping the bouncing coil to her shoulder.</p><p>Her nails combed over his scalp before she dragged them slowly down his neck.  His skin was tanned slightly and his hair had strands of dirty blond woven through it.  “I’ve missed you, missed us,” she whispered as her body lifted off the mattress to ruck against his.</p><p>The feeling was explosive, like a damn breaking its banks as arousal filled her veins.  She pulled his face down towards her and his lips met hers with the same vigour and longing.</p><p>Her nipples grazed against the smooth, but solid mounds of his chest, dragging a whimper of pleasure from her swelling lips.  There was so much to be said, but as his eyes tangled in hers and their bodies, naked and pulsating, pressed together, they knew it could  wait.</p><p>Famished for the feel of her, Oliver’s hands moved from her shoulders to her waist as his mouth teased the supple slopes of her breasts.  Moving from one to the other, he circled her peachy nipples with the tip of his tongue until they tightened into rosy peaks.</p><p>Her body rolled towards him as her nails clawed trenches in the sinewy landscape of his back.  Dipping a hand between her legs, Oliver could feel the heat pulsing off Felicity before he dipped his finger into her intoxicating heat.  Reactively, her body quaked, as though tiny bolts of electricity flickered through her veins, rising in intensity with each pass his fingers made through her folds.</p><p>His cock was throbbing, pulsing against her thighs and grazing the creamy comforter as he inched down her body.  It felt like fire simmering beneath the surface of his skin, each brush like a spark thrown onto the embers, just waiting for the inferno to erupt.  The pain was magnificent, heightening the sensations in his fingertips and lips as he craved every part of her.  It only grew more rampant, like a caged beast, when his mouth met with her mons.  He inhaled her, divine and decadent, before he slipped his tongue between her wet petals, stroking their velvety edges as she shuddered beneath him.</p><p>Felicity’s knuckles paled, deathly-white, as she knotted her hands in the blankets.  Pleasure surged through her body to the point where she could smell the headiness of it in the air and bright shades of white clouded her vision.  All she could do was whimper indulgently as Oliver lapped at her sex, humming as he tasted the slickness he drew out from inside her.</p><p>He ran his hand up his shaft, easing the building tension with a few sharp jerks as he sucked her in, filling his mouth with her taste, licking, sucking, and sluicing her sex from clit to canal while her throat swelled with silent screams of bliss.  Red flushed down her fair skin like a crimson scarf between her breasts in the moments before her release blanched his lips like exquisite silk, warm and delectable.</p><p>As Felicity’s orgasm lingered, Oliver hovered above her, his cock long and hard, protruding like a thick staff while the tip brushed against her thighs.  With an impish smile, Felicity coiled her legs around Oliver’s waist and pulled him down as she tipped her hips upwards.  He leaned into it, easing himself into the warm, tight embrace of her body.  With every fibre of control he had, he made sure he took his time, sinking deliriously slow, bit by bit, as he relished the tight mastery she had on his shaft, until he was seated, deep and snug.</p><p>The wildness was gone from their eyes, but not the desire that pulsated through the two of them where their bodies met.  Oliver leaned down and kissed her damp forehead, tender and reassuring that this moment was much more than carnality.  The truth was, he could stay like that indefinitely, buried inside her and feeling the tiny pulses of her orgasm as they trickled through her body.  There was nothing more organically pleasuring than that moment, that place.</p><p>But her body grew restless and her hips began to rock, while he moved in pace with her, pulling back and sinking in.  Gradually, their shared rhythm built until skin was slapping against skin, filling the small cabin with the wonderfully salacious sound.  As she thrust up towards him, he plunged down into her, slapping her clit against his base and sending a shockwave of pleasure tremoring through her body and erupting as a breathy moan from her full, blood-swollen lips.</p><p>His mouth dropped to her neck, feasting on the thin cords of her throat as his body stampeded towards climax.  The cords of muscles in his thighs tightened, almost painfully, as he lost all cadence and bucked riotously into her.  She clenched her body around him, owning him, before he spilled thick ribbons into her with uneven, jerky thrusts.  The warm sensation was all Felicity needed to topple over the edge herself, moments after.</p><p>Breathless, Oliver held himself above her, drinking in the sight of her.  Her dark locks were glued to her face and her pale eyes were blown wide.  Sun from the window at the bow of the boat streamed over her face, painting it glossy and angelic as he leaned down and kissed her gently.</p><p>“You’re really here,” he whispered, as he pressed his nose against her neck and breathed in the subtle notes of sweat on her skin.</p><p>“We both are,” she hummed, dancing her fingers over the slopes of his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>//</p><p> </p><p>Waking up to the familiar throb between her legs and the warm afternoon sun, Felicity stretched sleepily beneath the skewed cotton sheets where her and Oliver had wasted away the morning until sheer exhaustion took them.  Every inch of her body felt alive with the ghost of him as her fingertips drifted across her shoulders, mapping out the tiny tracks his mouth had left.</p><p>She was alone in the bed, but as she sat up onto her elbows, she was greeted with a delightful aroma.  After dressing in a black tee Oliver had left out for her, Felicity walked to the folding door of the bedroom and leaned against the doorway, watching Oliver, cooking, a few feet away.</p><p>“You should have stayed in bed,” she hummed, her fingertips playing with the hem of the shirt as it skimmed the tops of her thighs.<br/>Oliver looked up from the stovetop, a wide smile the centrepiece of his genuine joy.  “With all the things we have yet to do, you’ll need to keep your energy yup,” he said as he dished up two plates and carried them over to the honey-oak table.<br/>The vibrant aromas of chorizo and cherry tomatoes enticed Felicity to the table, her stomach writhing with anticipation.<br/>“I’m sorry,” Oliver started as he sat down opposite her. “I’m sorry I had to leave without seeing you first.” Felicity glanced up from her bowl of divine smelling risotto, but she didn’t interrupt him.  “John was off the books on this, on what we’d planned, so I needed to leave before anyone even thought to look for me.” His smile drifted downwards as his eyes filled with regret.</p><p>Felicity reached across the table, laying her hand gently on his.<br/>“I know, I understand,” she breathed.<br/>Relief washed much of his pained expression away, but some still remained tangled in his brow.  “I wasn’t sure you’d come, that you’d want to,” he admitted, brushing his thumb across her knuckles.  “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t.”<br/>“There was a moment, when I felt the flames of the explosion against my cheeks,” she paused, brushing away a solitary tear, “there was a moment I was afraid it hadn’t worked, that you hadn’t gotten out of there first, that John hadn’t…,” her words drifted off as another tear branded her cheek.  “I was afraid it was real.”</p><p>He held her hand, feeling it tremble.  “I’m sorry Felicity.”<br/>She nodded gently, she understood.  “But even in that moment, I knew I would come here.  I knew I had to, even if I only found an empty boat.”<br/>“Are you sure this is what you want? You could go back to your old life, be Felicity Smoak, you could–,”<br/>She stopped him with a smile as she pulled his hand towards her.<br/>“I don’t want my old life.  Alena is safe, there is nothing I want from it anymore.  I’m ready to start a new life with you.”<br/>“But what I’m asking you to give up, it’s a lot.”<br/>“It's nothing compared to what I gain.” After bringing his hand to her lips, she kissed it gently.  “This is where I want to be, with you is what I choose.”<br/>His face softened, peace settling where worry had camped.  But, there was one last thing he needed to know.  “My family, how were they?”<br/>Felicity held his hand, sandwiched between hers.  “They would have given anything to have you back Oliver.  But, you’ve given them peace in knowing who you really were, and what you did.”<br/>He smiled softly, hearing that was enough.</p><p>“I guess if Oliver Queen is truly dead, I’m going to need a new name,” he said with a faint, enigmatic smile that grew broader as he continued, “how about Michael?”<br/>Felicity squinted at him as her lips rolled inward.  “Seeing as we’re in exotic Lisbon, why not something a little less bland?” she teased. <br/>“How about Michele?”<br/>“Better,” she smiled, a soft laugh framing her words.</p><p>Oliver Queen was dead.  That was a life that he could never go back to.  A name he could never go by again.  There were friends he could never see and family he’d never speak to. </p><p>The loss was deep, like a knife wound that he knew would never truly heal.  But, he hoped they had peace now.  That they could move on with their lives, keeping him as a fond memory, as he would always cherish them.  It was a sacrifice he didn’t make easily, and it was a cost that exacted so much, but in the end he believed, more than anything, that it was one worth making.</p><p><br/>A line worth crossing.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>THE END.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><hr/><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>Oh *deep breath*</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>So, this is it.  Not only is this the end of this particular fic, but I will be laying down my figurative fic pen and retiring from writing Olicity. </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>I thought a lot about what I might say in this final note; the explanation, the emotions, the expressions ... but, honestly, none of that matters. Whatever led me here, whatever happened, ultimately I leave holding only the good memories.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>So, I'll leave with two, simple but perfect words, thank you.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>So many of you have supported me in ways that I could have never imagined.  Even those who I don’t share a relationship with anymore, at one time you were part of this too and for that, I am thankful.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>For those who have cried, laughed, screamed, and fell in love with each incarnation of Olicity right alongside me, thank you. For every comment and kudos, thank you.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>To the special few I count as friends, your support, encouragement, willingness, and honesty has always held me up when I need it. Thank you.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>To Ash, I know I wouldn’t have kept on without you. You challenge me the way only you could and for me, having found a friend in you is probably the most rewarding part of this all.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>To Rodlicity, Boliver, Cap’n, Badiver, Thorlicity, and all the rest – thank you for the years I have spent weaving your lives, loves, and losses.  It has been my absolute pleasure.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Words fail me now, but truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>Until we meet again.</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>xo</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> PS: be sure to bookmark/subscribe to ROD (and/or others), because you never know ;)</strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hehehehe I still went out with a bang, yes?</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The reader/writer relationship is a symbiotic one, so please let me know what you think xox</p><p>Twitter / Tumblr @someonesaidcake</p><p>PLEASE DO NOT UPLOAD THIS FIC TO ANY THIRD PARTY WEBSITE.</p><p>Respect what I've spent so long creating. Thank you.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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